Charlie Paparella Recounts the History of DuPont Highway

DELAWARE – In this week’s edition of Back on the Road with Charlie Paparella, brought to you by Furniture & More Gone Coastal, Charlie explores the history of DuPont Highway.

Charlie tells us its important to safely navigate today’s busy roads — which is why he opts to take DuPont Highway, where he can admire the giant Sycamore trees. But, the history of the road is what makes it truly special for Charlie.

“In the early 1900s, a fellow named T. Coleman du Pont, the great grandson of E. I. du Pont, who was Abraham Lincoln’s gunpowder connection, thought it would be a good idea to build better roads through and around the lower counties of Kent and Sussex,” Charlie explains. “That way slower, Lower Delaware could catch up with their northern neighbors.”

The project came to be a massive undertaking, done in sections, that ultimately provided farmers with new markets and manufacturers. The economic development du Pont made possible for southern Delaware benefited his own holdings greatly. Today, those southern counties are busy places, full of commerce and industry — and the beaches host thousands every year. Charlie says a lesson can be learned from the history of these roads.

“These roads are the foundation upon which these towns and cities have grown, simply because they were included in a plan a century ago. It’s worth noting that T. Coleman du Pont paid for the road construction, and gave them to his fellow citizens free of charge, honoring an old French maxim, ‘noblesse oblige’, which means ‘nobility obligates’,” Charlie tells us. “That’s a quaint notion that the famous one percenters have apparently forgotten.”

If you have a story idea that you’d like to see Charlie tackle, email them to papa@wmdt.com.