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Though DELAWARE has its beauty spots
– including some of the mid-Atlantic's best
beaches – its tourist boards and PR people
have their work cut out. About the only images
potential visitors have of the state are
negative: Delaware is known for the massive
chemical plants of the Du Pont Corporation and
Dover Air Force Base, as well as for
tolerating shady business practices – half
of America's largest companies have their
official bases in this tiny state, thanks to
its permissive tax, banking and incorporation
laws (there's no sales tax either).
None of the above is likely to make you
want to visit, so instead Delaware's promoters
emphasize its past – for example, as the
first ex-colony to ratify the Constitution, it
claims the title of America's First State.
Dutch whalers established a settlement at the
mouth of the Delaware Bay in 1631, and soon
afterwards the Swedes built a larger colony at
present-day Wilmington. The two groups
fought among themselves until the British took
over in 1664. Delaware was part of neighboring
Pennsylvania – Philadelphia is only ten
miles north of the present, arching state
border – until hiving itself off in 1776.
Much of Delaware's fortunes (and
misfortunes) since then can be traced directly
to the du Pont family, who, fleeing the wrath
of revolutionary France, set up a gunpowder
mill that became, and has remained, the main
supplier of conventional explosives to the US
Government. After World War I, the du Ponts
went public and made millions in the stock
market frenzies of the Roaring Twenties, since
when the company has diversified, its labs
inventing such modern essentials as nylon and
cellophane.
The du Ponts built huge mansions for
themselves in the Brandywine Valley north
of Wilmington, near the perfectly preserved
old colonial capital, New Castle, on
the Delaware Bay, just five miles south of
I-95. Further south, Dover, the
capital, may not detain you long, but beyond
it the small and amiable resorts of Lewes and
Rehoboth Beach mark the northern extent
of over twenty miles of unspoiled Atlantic
beaches.
Click here to go to Delaware State
web site. |
