Millville e Past Present Future
Past ... 3
A trip back through time, via historical record and personal accounts
Present ... 12
Millville today — through the eyes of those leading the town, and those who live within her borders
Celebration
... 16
The town is planning a huge party to celebrate 100 years of Millville. See who planned it, and find your spot on the parade route
Future ... 19
Millville is in for a lot of change down the road. What can we expect? Well, the staff here takes a shot at speculating
PUBLISHER Susan Lyons
EDITOR Darin J. McCann
ART DIRECTOR Shaun Lambert
REPO RTERS Sam Harvey, M. Patricia Titus, John Denny, Jonathan Starkey
ADVERTISING Carolyn Fitz, Susan Argo
PRODUCTION Bob Bertram
PHOTOGRAPHER Ruslana Lambert
OFFICE MANAGER Monica Fleming
CLASSIFIE D Jane Johnson
The Coastal Point is published weekly at 111 Atlantic Ave., Ocean View, DE 19970. The mailing address is: P.O. Box 1324, Ocean View, DE 19970
Phone : 302.539.1788
Fax: 302.539.3777
All advertisements created by the Coastal Point staff are property of Coastal Point LLC, and can not be replicated without permission. www.coastalpoint.com
Past
By Sam Harvey Staff Reporter
Take a trip through Millville’s past with the Coastal Point
Millville rooted in several centuries, not just one
Historians may one day de vote whole chapters to Millville. But at lea st in the time since the town wa s first establishe d , some 100 years a g o, there’s b een little written ab out its originsspe cifically.
However, there are some ver y lo ca l and well-written histories which do, in illuminatingthe early days of the Baltimore Hundre d (southea stern Sussex), cast manyglancing rays upon the area where Millville would one day rise.
What record does existsuggeststhe communit y came tog ethervery slowly over time. Althoug h Mil lvil le didn’t formally org anize until early in the 20th century,quite a few lo ca l families can probably trace their ancestries hundre ds of years earlier.
GordonWoo d Sr., who grewup in Millville, traced dozens of lo calgenealo g ies in preparing his “L etters to the Little Ones” family history.
And in doing so, he made this observation : many of the names app earing in the 1780 Census for the Baltimore Hundredwere still in lo ca l e vidence years af ter the town’s establishment.
Amongthe 30 students of Wood’sgraduating class of 1953 from L ord Baltimore S cho ol, fully 25 studentsstil l b ore surnames mentione d in 1780, or their mothers did , he p ointed out.
despaire d of the duelingpropert y owners that he a sked:
“Thatthe y do not make g rants of any par t of the lands in contest … nor any par t of the thre e lower counties, commonly calle d NewCastle, Kent and Sussex , nor p ermit any p erson to settle there, or e ven to attemptto make a settlementthereon, till His Majesty’s plea sure shall be f urther sig nifie d.” (From Thomas Scharf’s “Histor y of D elaware, 1609-1888”)
Not thatthe area wa s a ll that app ea ling anyway.
“ When the firstsettlers had arrived , marshes and swamps coveredmuch of the ea stern p ortion of the present-day hundred (Baltimore Hundred ), and early plantationswere larg ely confine d tohig h g round in the vicinit y of the presenttowns of O cean V ie w,Millville and Clarksville,” RichardCarter wrote, in his “History of Sussex County.”
Delaware wa s just a ne wborn in 1780 — it had taken the Calverts of Maryland and the Penns of Pennsylvania nearly 100 years of contentious, and sometimes violent,dispute to settle the borders
Atone p oint, in 1737, England’s King G eorg e II had so
Some of the lo ca l farmers held slaves in those days, but “the economic viabilit y of slaver y … had diminishe d in this area b efore the (Civil ) War,” Wood wrote. “By 1850, the U.S. Census reporte d a lmost 50 p ercent more fre e ‘colored’ ma les than slaves in Baltimore Hundre d — 237 to 162.”
When war came, the men of the Baltimore Hundre d volunteere d for the Union.
Following S charf’s history into the Civil War, Wood fo cuse d on Company D of the Sixth R egiment, D elaware Volunteer Infantry, and he note d many lo ca l names on Company D’s roster:
“Lynch, West, Williams, Bennett, Bunting , D erickson, Evans, Hickman, Hudson, Mege e, Murray, Rickards and Wilgus. Clearly,
Photo by Sam Harvey Atlas from D.B. Beers Atlas, shows the area in 1867. Courtesy of Antique Prints.
Iamproud to have been raised in Millville and to have this opportunity to be your State Representative. Congratulations Millville, on your Centennial Celebration!
Gerald W. Hocker Representative, State of Delaware
gerald.hocker@state.de.us
The second and third generations of Hocker’s Grocery, Deli & Hardware would like to thank the town of Millville and all our customers and residents for their loyal support of 59 years!
ROOTS
continued from page 3
this company was recruited from residents of Baltimore Hundred and the surrounding area,” Wood pointed out.
They would serve a relatively short, but bitter tour, primarily as guards at Fort Delaware, “a dreaded prison for Confederate soldiers,” Wood wrote. Thousands of prisoners succumbed to conditions and disease, and he suggested that guard duty may have been almost as bad as being a prisoner.
“There is no argument against Lincoln’s freeing the slaves,” Wood continued. But he noted the problems that followed the Civil War — the Jim Crow laws that slowed local progress toward universal civil rights, and the widespread economic side effects. “Untrained and uneducated and generally without land, the former slaves were ill-equipped to get ahead,” he wrote. “The last third of the nineteenth century was a time of little economic development.”
But this was apparently affecting everyone
See ROOTS page 6
Photo by Sam Harvey
This atlas shows the Baltimore Hundred, pre-1700.
ROOTS
continued from page 5
in the Baltimore Hundred, black and white. Wood reviewed 40 year’s worth of Sussex County tax assessments, leading up to 1896, and noted very slow appreciation among the estates of the Baltimore Hundred’s farming families.
When they weren’t putting food on the table, many people cut timber, or ran sawmills to turn it to lumber. In fact, “A Guide to the First State” (Works Progress Administration), pointed out that Millville “grew up around a ‘steam mill’ (sawmill) operated by Capt. Peter Townsend in the late 19th Century.”
Where the timbering cleared the fields, there were crops and livestock, and in the local waterways there were plenty of fish, crabs, clams and oysters.
But as Carter described in “Clearing New Ground,” (a biography of Delaware Gov. and U.S. Sen. John G. Townsend Jr.), “the middle 1890s were years of recession…caused by the excesses of the railroad barons and the great Eastern financiers and industrialists in their quest for evergreater profits.
“The downturn came at a time when southern Delaware farmers and businessmen were just beginning to see the marvelous new opportunities opened up by the coming of
See ROOTS page 7
Photo by Submitted
The Masonic Temple in Millville.
ROOTS
continued from page 6
the railroads, of which the new strawberry business was just one example,” Carter wrote.
He blamed poor roads, and a rail monopoly which levied “outrageous rates in areas like Delmarva,” for stunting Sussex’s economic growth.
“The absurdly high rate schedules … were directed particularly at fresh fruits, seafood and other perishables, the very products which Baltimore and Dagsboro Hundreds and Worcester County produced in abundance,” Carter wrote.
Southwestern Sussex Countians were better off, in that they had access to a major alternative shipping route, in the Nanticoke River, Carter noted. Not so on the east side.
“Many Baltimore Hundred men tried to escape the railroad rates by shipping from Townsend’s Landing (now known as Sandy Landing), White’s Creek, and other Indian River shipping points, but that was a much less certain proposition,” he wrote. “The hazards of navigating the shallow Indian River Inlet and the mouth of the Delaware Bay were notorious.”
But into the early 20th century, they continued to launch from the local docks and dodge the shoals, up the coast to Philadelphia and New Jersey.
Some of the ships were even built locally — Carter referenced Millville resident Elisha C. Dukes’ sloop, the “Ethel
Dukes,” which had been built just north of Millville, at Walter’s Bluff (near Holt’s Landing).
Wood’s research lent additional detail — the “Ethel Dukes” had been built in 1888, he found, and had been 41 feet long with a remarkably shallow draft (essential design for the shallow local waterways).
“Sloops…and small schooners from 10 tons to just over 40 tons and ranging in length from 30 feet to nearly 60 feet,” Wood wrote, “sailed from such places as Daisey and Pennewell’s Landing in Ocean View, White’s Creek in Millville, Blackwater Creek and Millsboro.”
He noted the gradual disappearance of these graceful craft in the wake of competition from the railroad, new overland roads and silting on the river and at the landings, with some regret.
The 20th century would bring radios and automobiles, prosperity and depression and prosperity again, and a million new technologies. But these were the times leading up to Millville’s establishment, 100 years ago.
And these were the people who founded the town — families of ship captains and watermen, millers and farmers, many of them residents for hundreds of years already, in what would become the town of Millville.
Millville residents remember early years
By Sam Harvey Staff Reporter
The tiny acorn has grown to a sturdy oak since the tiny town of Millville announced its presence in 1906, one century ago this year. And the children of those times have become the town’s elders.
But they remember, and as copper leaves swirl back to the tree and green to bud again, their memories lead back to the days when Millville first put down its roots.
The winters were apparently harsher in those days — as long-time resident Ruley Banks pointed out, the world had just emerged from the Little Ice Age, and he remembered some of the old-timers’ accounts of the “Blizzard of 1888.”
“There was snow up to the eaves of the houses, and the farmers had to tunnel their way out to feed the cattle,” Banks relayed. “I remember a couple of elderly ladies, from Ocean View, who came to the school and talked about it — this was in the 1940s. They said a man had died in that blizzard, and they couldn’t get him out until the snow melted.”
But things warmed up eventually, and Millville started to regain some of the momentum lost during the depression of the late 19th century.
For the most part, the people of the still-remote Baltimore Hundred remained somewhat insulated from the up-ticks and downturns of the broader economy.
Millville locals subsisted much as they had for hundreds of years, digging ditches to drain new farmland, clearing ground, raising their crops and livestock and fishing the local waterways.
Life on the farm
Long-time resident Pearl Robinson, born in 1921, remembered a simpler time — if not an easier one.
“You had to work — too much,” she stated. “I picked strawberries and tomatoes, thinned corn,” she said. “I’d attend to the corn planter chain — that was used to hill the corn, and then you could harry it both ways.”
“People worked the dirt,” added Grace Wolfe. “And everybody fished and crabbed — they set a good table.”
But she suggested it had been difficult for people of her parents’ generation to get ahead financially. “Corn, soybeans, wheat – you could hardly make a living,” Wolfe pointed out. “It was chickens that put us on the map.”
The Steeles, a family from the Ocean View area, just about singlehandedly launched the broiler industry in 1923, and their insight lifted Millville’s boats as well.
That was the same year that U.S. Sen. T. Coleman duPont (R-Del.) finally oversaw the completion of the north-south highway through the state (at that time two 16-foot lanes, one in each direction).
Finally, the locals had some relief from the rail monopolies and the unpredictable shipping routes of the Indian River. Sloops had given way to steamships, but the new technology hadn’t improved things for the localwatermenall that much. Until the federal government stabilized the Indian River Inlet in 1939, it was as likely as not that a storm of any size would blowanimpassable shoal across the shifting channel.
Meanwhile, more Millville residentsstarted buying cars and trucks. And this improved ability to ship goods toward the metro areas, provided some local insulation as the nation declined into the Great Depression.
The old-timers generally voiced consensus that times had been tight, but the farms and fishing grounds of the Baltimore Hundred kept people going until things improved.
Military service
The teen years of the 1900s brought military conflict, first along the U.S.-Mexico border (in 1916) and then overseas, and the locals left their forests, farms and docks to serve.
Photo by Submitted
Millville United Methodist Church-goers pose for a photo during a church picnic.
A lifetime of Millville memories
By Susan Lyons Publisher
The town of Millville is celebrating its 100th birthday. What does Millville mean to you? Each of us would have something different to say about it. As you will read in the numerous accountings of the past many of the original family names still live in the area. Whether you have lived here forever or only a few years, it is a town that is special in its own unique way.
I have a lot of history in Millville. You see, I have lived in this town on Cedar Drive since 1974. And Cedar Drive has seen many changes since I first moved there. Back in the ’70s there were only eight houses on the street. We all knew each other. Bruce and Arlene Layton were our neighbors, and Kenny and Rita Crooks lived on the other side of them. On the other side of us was Mrs. Winterbotton. Now, there are about 20 homes on that tiny stretch of road, with a new shopping center at the end of street.
The old store is gone now, though many of you would remember it by its last name, Winterbottom’s. On the property now is Tri-state Coin and Firearms.
Now, my dad’s family traces even farther back into Millville history. Harry and Flossie Cobb were both raised just a bit down the road in Clarksville. When they married in 1907, they moved to Millville, to what is now Club House Road. My dad has referred to the street many times by its old nickname of Hell Cat Alley. There must be a story there somewhere, maybe several.
The house is still there, across the street from the Millville Cemetery. My grandfather was a carpenter, and he built the house himself. He built several homes in the area but also traveled to Philadelphia and other places to build homes, so he was gone a lot. I can barely remember him now, as he passed away when I was very young.
We have raised three children in this house and seen them off to college. Our home is now occasionally visited by our granddaughter. Five years ago, we totally remodeled the house, so everything is different but yet still very much the same. Thirtytwo years seems like such a long time. But my family has ties to Mil lvil le thatgob ack much further.
My mom movedtoMillville with her parents, Harold and May Palmatary, in 1945 from Prospect Park, Pa., where my grandfatherwasa foreman for Scott Paper. He left a big company to be h is ownb oss. My mom, Shirley, was 12 at the time and my uncle Bud was 6.
The y movedtoMil lville, buying out Doc Hocker’s store, where they sold patent medicines. My grandmother had a case in it where she sold jewelry. It was also an ice-cream parlor. On Sunday nights, there would be a line outside waiting for them to open, to get ice cream cones for 5 cents a scoop. I can remember my grandmother telling me about how everyone had a fit when they had to raise the price to 6 cents.
But my grandmother lived to be 99. In her younger days, she was the midwife for the area. She would also be gone a lot, staying right at the family’s home in the last week or two, waiting to del iver the new addition to the family. As she would say in her own way, “She born many a folk around here.” I loved to hear her talk about the old days, as she had very cool sayings, always referringtomyhusband, Andy, as “Susan’s man.”
Mydad wasthe youngest of the children. My favorite story is ab out the day he was born. She was out in the garden, picking strawb erries, when the labor started. She sent one of the kids to find D ocHo cker, but — as she so eloquently stated — “Billy had a lready come to town” by the time the doctor arrived.
Ourfam ily has shared many memories of living in Millville and there are yet so many more to come. This town is a part of us all and will be a part of many new families as we face the new growth that is upon us. Along with our town leaders, we all play an important role in shaping Millville’s future for the generations to come.
Happy Anniversary, Millville.
continued from page 8
Known as the Delaware Militia until 1906, the Delaware National Guard reformed as the 59th Pioneer Infantry in 1907. This combination infantry/construction engineering unit, seasoned along the Rio Grande, “served with honor” in France, and remained with the occupying forces in Germany until mid-1919, according to H. Clay Reed’s “Delaware: A History of the First State.”
Long-time resident Bill Cobb remembered one veteran – John Sanford Noble Sr.. He was always a little shell-shocked after the war, Cobb said, but did reenter civilian life, becoming a math teacher at the Lord Baltimore School and marrying the daughter of preeminent (and sole) local physician Dr. K.J. Hocker.
Surely there were others from the Baltimore Hundred who served perhaps even some who reenlisted in the late 1930s.
World War II wrought significant changes, in Millville as elsewhere around the country. “Everything was hard to get,” Cobb remembered. “There were (ration) stamps for everything.”
The locals made out better than people in some areas, he added — again, Millville residents had gardens and livestock, and so weren’t as dependent on the markets as some.
“But there was nobody in Millville,” Cobb remembered. “It was pitiful — you couldn’t find anyone to talk to, unless it was an old man.”
All the American men had gone to war, Cobb pointed out — as he would himself, as soon as he came of age.
Some young men did arrive in the Millville area in the mid-1940s, though — Nazi prisoners, mostly captured in North Africa, according to William Connor and Leon deValinger Jr.’s “Delaware’s Role in World War II.”
“In addition to solving some of the farmers and orchardists’ problems, Southern Delaware poultrymen declared the employment of the Nazi prisoners prevented enormous losses in their industry,” Connor and deValinger wrote.
Wolfe remembered their camps, south of Ocean View. However, she emphasized that the prison labor hadn’t filled the labor shortage. “There were a lot of women out in those chicken houses, too,” she noted.
Women of that era took a greater role in direct support as well, through the Women’s Army Corps. And the older men volunteered for Civil Air Patrol guard duty, in the observation towers along the beach, Cobb remembered.
Millville United Methodist parishioners honored the veterans with a plaque, bearing 40 local names, including Banks, and his cousin, and Cobb and his brother, and two men apiece from the Marvel, Murray and West families, three from the Derrickson family and four Megees.
Church and social life
For the most part, social life revolved around family and church, with a little fraternal escape at the Masonic Temple (Doric Lodge), built in 1900.
According to a church history written by Banks and Harriet
HISTORY
McClung, there was another church in town before parishioners built the Millville U.M., in 1907.
The little building with cedar siding (still in existence today), across the street from the Doric Lodge, was at one time a Methodist Protestant church, later a Baptist church and was then used as a fourthgrade classroom, for a short period.
A group of Millville U.M. parishioners bought it in the 1950s, and it became a hub for church-related social events, fundraisers, potlucks and Ladies Aid meetings.
According to Banks and McClung, Millville U.M. had for many years been too small to rate its own minister — for many, many years, they shared with Mariner’s Bethel, in Ocean View, and Frankford and Roxana churches.
As long-time resident Grace Wolfe pointed out, “It was three weeks before we got a Sunday morning service.” So getting to hear a real sermon was a treat.
“They took their main collection the third Sunday in June, after school was over and when the first crop was in,” Wolfe added. This collection primarily went to organize a special children’s program, she said.
And she remembered a minor scandal when it came to light that her father had accepted a donation from the liquor store — “That’s tainted money!” critics charged. But he apparently countered that he’d take a donation wherever he could find one.
Kent and Sussex were dry counties from 1907 until — well, some towns are still pretty dry. Suffice it to say, the locals were ahead of the curve when it came to temperance, adopting their own brand of Prohibition more than 10 years before the movement went national.
Cobb remembered some other entertainments — including those provided at a Junior Order lodge, located due north of Millville United Methodist.
“They held shows there, stage shows, maybe a singer and someone to play the guitar, and they’d sell you a 25-cent box of popcorn,” he recalled.
There was also a pre-“speakies” movie theatre, at least for a short time, near Dr. Hocker’s office (next to the present-day Tri-State Coins & Firearms), Cobb said.
Everyone remembered Fourth of July celebrations at Sandy Landing (northwest of town, on the Indian River) as the highlight of the entire year. People set up stands and sold food and beverages; others just brought their own and picnicked, or had a fish fry.
There were plenty of bonfires — even a firecracker or two.
Grace Collins remembered fishing for crabs — “It didn’t matter if we only caught one, we’d split it.” As she remembered, no day had been complete until she and her brother had fallen out of the boat and utterly soaked themselves.
According to Collins, the main road through Millville was paved in the 1920s — but as native son Blaine Phillips noted, all of the side roads remained hard-packed dirt well into the 1940s.
“Which was what made it such a wonderful place to have ponies
Take a trip through Millville’s present with the Coastal Point
Present res ent
By Jonathan Starkey Staff Reporter
Growing up in Millville, Gary Willey admits, he wasn’t at all interested in its politics.
The 58-year-old native of the small town didn’t know when its council members introduced a new ordinance. He didn’t even know when the town passed a new ordinance.
But, throughout his childhood, he did know intimately the p eople who performed such duties. Long before Willey became interested in home-town politics, his father, and his father before him served as mayors of the small town. Willey’s grandfather wrotethe town’s charter in 1906, he said.
“Justlikemy boys now, they don’t really get involved in it,” Willey said, “I didn’t in those days. But as I got older and more matureIkne wthe importance of governing the way the town was goingto go in the future.”
As the town’s present mayor, Wille y is now serving on his 24thand possible final year as a part of Millville’s government. Willey was first elected as a Millville town councilman in 1982 at the age of 34. He served as a councilman until 1997, when he was elected mayor for the first time, assuming a position he has not yet left.
In his time as the town’s mayor, he said that he has seen the town almost go under and then blossom into arguably the fastest growing town in the First State.
Willey leads town to good times
giant — was threatening to cut Millville off with its own expansion.
“Ocean View had the capability of going south and annexing west, and we would not have been able to expand at all,” Willey said. “It would have been a better position for us to let them take us over.”
In his father’s time, Willey said, Ocean View didn’t threaten Millville. Both remained quiet towns, not yet discovered by the Washington, D.C, Baltimore and New Jersey types. His father’s and g randfather ’s councils rarely approved annexations, but they weren’t threatened like his administration was in the year 2003.
But then something came along. Early that year, Gulfstream Developmentand the Millville Group announced their plans for the 2,495-home Millville by the Sea master planned community. The 606-acre plan would be the firstMPCinMillville, and it revived the town. Willey said that working with the community’s developers has been the most significant happening in his time at the head of Millville’s town government.
“The town is doing very, very well,” Willey said. We’ll be around for quite a while. I worried for a while the town wouldn’t exist anymore.”
Willey said that it was about three years ago when Millville was struggling to remain a town. It hadn’t expanded, and Ocean V iew — the neighbor that was quickly turning into a resort-town
Since, the town has continued to expand its land and its wallet. In late 2004, under Willey’s leadership, the town moved out of its 20-by-24-foot town hall (with no running water) to its beautiful 3,000square-foot spot at 11 Clubhouse Road. And as the town’s bank roll continued to thrive, Willey and council hired Town Manager Linda Collins in S eptember of 2005. As a measure of the town’s growing wealth, Collins just helped draft a $273,375 2006-2007 budget, which quadrupled the numbers from a year earlier.
Photo by Jonathan Starkey
Millville Mayor Gary Willey works from his desk in town hall.
Bennet embraces new home in Millville
By Jonathan Starkey Staff Reporter
Growing up, Joan Bennett probably didn’t even know where Millville was located on a map. The native of East Lime — a southeastern Connecticut town — grew up hundreds of miles north of the Southern Delaware haven.
But in 2003, after touring the area with her husband, they decided to make the move to the warmer, less-expensive area of the eastern seaboard.
“It got us close to the beach and close to the water, which is a great love of ours,” Bennett said of the move. “It’s the same environment as East Lyme.”
Soon after moving, Bennett established herself in the community, starting a title-search business and attending most of the town’s meetings. Early in 2006, she decided to delve deeper into the town’s workings, when she filed for election for a seat on Millville’s town council.
And after running uncontested, she assumed Cliff Toomey’s former seat and job as treasurer.
“I know she was very interested in the town,” said Toomey, a life-long area resident. “She was faithful in her attendance. I think it’s good for the community, someone different, a new set of eyes. She’s
See BENNETT page 14
Photo by Jonathan Starkey
Joan Bennett seems comfortable in her new seat on the Millville Town Council — she’s also quite pleased with her new hometown.
Bennett
continued from page 13
probably better qualified than I am.”
“Her outlook is fresh,” Millville Mayor Gary Willey added. “I’m proud to have her on town council.”
On that governing board, Bennett now represents an ever-growing transplant section of the community, which seems to be interested in the well-being of the town as it moves forward into its second century of existence.
After assuming the position on council, she took an immediate interest in the budgetary process and joined the Centennial Committee. Since January, that committee has been planning for the celebration of the town’s 100th birthday.
“I’m a person who wants to get things done. That’s the best thing I can offer,” Bennett said. “I look forward to the issues. I enjoy it. Because of my background and my education, I look forward to seeing an issue and examining it.”
Even as a teenager, Bennett was interested in politics. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of New Haven in Connecticut, she returned for her master’s degree in the same subject at Southern Connecticut State University. She then held a job as an assistant to the Connecticut equivalent of a mayor and served for one term on a town council in a small Connecticut town.
Custom Tile & Marble Custom Tile & Marble
Design ❖ Sales & Installation
“I consider everything carefully when it comes to the town and the taxpayers,” Bennett said. “‘Is it going to be good for the people, is it not?’ Those kinds of examinations of pros and cons, I really enjoy. I love that.”
She has especially applied that type of thinking to the growth surrounding her adopted home, Bennett said. Millville is certainly one of the fastest growing municipalities in the state. The Millville by the Sea master planned community (MPC) is the largest development ever approved in Delaware. The plans for the Route 17-based MPC now call for 2,495 homes on a 606-acre plot.
And as a councilperson, Bennett faces questions about Millville by the Sea at nearly every monthly council meeting. Is it good for the town, is it not? Those are questions she asks herself every four weeks, if not every day. “I feel this is a time for consistent and thoughtful action,” Bennett said.
Bennett said she is, however, in favor of the growth. She can, after all, relate to people moving to the area for a quieter, less expensive, warmer and overall nicer way of life.
But, she added, she and her husband picked Millville because it was less congested than other southeastern Delaware towns. And the truly-concerned transplant has no plans to disturb this “small town with conveniences.”
“I like that it is a small community but that it has conveniences around it,” Bennett said. “It is now convenient to shopping. It is convenient to the beach. The new motto for the town is ‘Millville — A Beautiful way of Life.’ And it is. I don’t have any plans to affect that at all.”
Good night Millville.
Town Center leads town expansion
By Jonathan Starkey Staff Reporter
To do his shopping, Dagsboro resident Andy Furst used to make the trek north to Rehoboth Beach. There are simply more options in the more densely-developed Delaware coastal town about 30 minutes northeast of Millville.
There were, at least. Since the Millville Super Giant opened on April 20, area residents and the ever-increasing amount of visitors are starting to see local options expand.
“I love it,” Furst said, “especially the Giant. It’s booming. I’ve been here at 1 in the morning and it’s busy.”
Millville’s newest grocery stop offers everything from the latest DVD’s to sushi, and it sits as the centerpiece of Millville Town Center. When completed, a Quiznos sub shop, an art gallery and framing shop, a steakhouse, and likely more will surround the Giant in an all-in-one consumer haven.
The new center has already, and will undoubt-
Step back in time as you step through our door. Enjoy our Southern Hospitality as you experience room after room of unique “cottage country” gifts and goodies and ofcourse – wicker!
Photo by Darin J. McCann
Super Giant is a strong anchor for the Millville Town Center.
Millville prepares to
Diverse group brings anniversary to life
By Jonathan Starkey Staff Reporter
Two came to Millville from Connecticut. One is originally from Virginia, but moved to Milford from New Jersey. One is a Selbyville native, and another is from upstate Delaware.
There are only two Millville natives on the town’s Centennial Committee, the seven-member board that is behind the scenes, preparing for the town’s largest celebration ever.
“It’s been wonderful,” said Sue Knox, one of the town natives, of the preparations. “We have all worked very hard together. And it’s not just the town people.”
People from several geographical backgrounds have displayed their dedication to their new home or workplace, celebrating the town’s ever-growing diversity and its 100th birthday all at the same time.
Since late January, Knox, LindaCollins, Joan Bennett, Mark Reeve, Debbie Botchie, Kami Banks and Robin Meringolo have met topreparethe celebration.
Starting with monthly meetings, they were assembling once everytwoweeks by the beginning of March. And since mid-April, the group has grown fond of each other, meeting once or twice a week as the affair, which on May 20 will include a parade and a party from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Millville Fire Hall, draws near.
Meringolo, the office manager for Millville by the Sea, who obtained a moon bounce for the event and was in charge of Tshirts, is the community business representative of the group.
Millville’s town manager agreed with her assessment about Reeve.
“We really need to give him a lot of credit,” said Town Manager Linda Collins of Reeve, whose humility wouldn’t allow him to comment for this story. “He hasn’t asked for any recognition but the town owes him.”
Collins is a part of the three-person Town Hall administrative group working on the committee. She, part-time Town Clerk Knox – who was in charge of attaining porta-potties for the event — and the town’s first-ever full-time employee, Botchie, have been in charge of most of the record-keeping.
Throughfamily connections, Botchie, a town clerk, also contacted members of the NanticokeIndian tribe, whose danceteam will march in the parade and perform dances at the party.
“Whenthese small towns are all connected you feel like you’re from here,” said Botchie, the Selbyville native, who says she’s done “anything they tell me to do. I’ve learned a lot of new things.”
“We have had a great time,” said Bennett, a Connecticut native who, since moving, has immersed herself into the community. “Everyone has their area of expertise.”
Bennett, like everyone else, has taken turns calling sponsors. The committee has raised more than $40,000 for the May 20 celebration. And Bennett contacted the Delaware Army National Guard, whose 45-member band will be one of more than 30 groups to participate in the .5 mile-parade from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.
“I’m so proud of that,” she said.
Bennett’s husband, Reeve, has emerged as the leader of the seven-member committee, according to his fellow committee members. A public-relations specialist, Reeve has also put together a book that chronicles the history of the 10-year-old town.
“The book is wonderful,” said Meringolo, a Virginia native. “He’s done an awful lot.”
Banks, the other Millville native in the crowd, has had a similar experience. A regular attendee at town meetings, she was appointed to the committee by Mayor Gary Willey in early 2006. The pronounced “Queen of Millville” will lead the parade, which she is in charge of setting up the day of the event.
“It’s been exciting every step of the way,” Banks said. “None of us have really been on a parade committee before.”
But despite that fact, in just three months, the seven members individually and as a group have organized an event worthy of remembrance. With three bands, a singer of Frank Sinatra tunes, a disc-jockey playing area favorites, a 51-foot slide and a dunking booth — all combined with the first Millville parade ever, which will shut down Route 26 for an hour on an early-summer Saturday afternoon — the celebration will certainly be hard to forget.
“We had a mixture (on the committee) and it really blended well,” Collins said. “No one person could ever have done it.”
Photo by Jonathan Starkey
From left, Joan Bennett, Linda Collins, Sue Knox, Robin Meringolo, Kami Banks, Mark Reeve and Debbie Botchie have been hard at work planning for the Millville Centennial.
celebrate Centennial AtlanticAve.[Route26]
Parade:
The .5-m ile parade will last from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 20. It will start on Atlantic Avenue, just east of The Shoppes of Millville, and end at the Millville Fire Hall. The Delaware Army National Guard Marching Band, floats from area community organizations and clubs, local and state dignitaries, vintage fire company vehicles and members of local auto clubs will participate.
Party:
The party will start directly after the parade and last from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the fire hall. The Bird Dogs and the Road Kings, Right Hand for Richard, The Southern Delaware School of the Arts steel drum band Steel the Show, Frank Sinatra singer Lou Vello and DJ Don Minyon will entertain the crowd. For kids, there will be entertainment provided by Bubbles the Clown, face painting and other special attractions, a 51-foot shark slide, an Ocean Bounce and a dunking booth. Millville Fire Hall’s Ladies’ Auxiliary will provide food and refreshments.
Sponsors of Event:
Premium Platinum Sponsor: Wilmington Trust Company
Gold Sponsors: Beebe Medical Center; First Shore Federal Savings and Loan Association; Giant of Maryland LLC; Mercantile Peninsula Bank; Millville Group LLC; NV Homes; Peninsula Regional Health Systems; Ryan Homes
Silver Sponsors: Banks Wine and Spirits; G&B Properties; Hocker’s Super Center; Robert Kauffman, Realtor and Appraiser
Bronze Sponsors: Coastal Point; County Bank; Vickie York at the Beach Realty; The Delaware Wave
Copper Sponsors: Artisans Bank; Bunting and Murray; Magic Memory Sounds DJ Don Minyon; Millville Mini Storage; Rent Equip/All About Parties; Wachovia Bank
Good Citizen Sponsors: Sen. George Bunting; DeMarie Real Estate; D.M.E. Enterprises Inc.; Friends and Family Practice; Friends for Hocker; G.A. Hastings Associates; Jacono’s Tree Service; Delmarva Two-way Radio Inc; Mr. Natural Bottled Water; Creative Concepts; Solar Shield MidAtlantic Inc.; Tidewater Utilities Inc.; Total Workout Fitness Center; Utz Potato Chips
Special Donations: Cliff and Peggy Toomey; Sweet Adelines Sounds of the Atlantic; Outdoor Excellence
Millville Peddler
Michael McCarthy Stones
The Shoppes of Millville
Auctions (Parade staging area)
MillvilleTown Hall
Map Submitted — Enhanced by Shaun Lambert
The parade will head east on Route 26 for .5 miles, ending at the Millville Fire Hall.
Future uture
By M. Patricia Titus Staff Reporter
Take a trip through Millville’s future with the Coastal Point
A vision of Millville’s future
As Millville reached its centennial year in 2006, no one c ould deny that big change was right around the corner for the town and its several hundred residents.
More than one large residential community was set to be de veloped within town limits in the coming years, and with thousands of homes to be built, there was no question that a significant mb
idents — part-time and full-time — would soon be calling M illville their home, or at least a home away from home. But what might that change — and others — mean for the town and townsfolk in the coming decades and into its bicentenn ial year of 2106?
Growth an undeniable trend Nat naltr ack ng shows clear trends toward growth in
I visualize a dual roadway from St. George’s Church to Bethany beach. Bethany Beach will spread westward with the towns merging into one city. The lifestyle we up in at the beach will be gone. I thank God for the area that I grew up in when local people could go the beach anytime, there was plenty of parking, room on the beach, and your knew almost everyone there. Those days are gone. We can’t look back. We must look ahead for the best possible future not only for our children, but our great-great grandchildren 100 years from now.
State Rep. Gerald Hocker, R-38th Distric
FUTURE
continued from page 19
residents would move to Sussex County in that time — a 5 to 10 percent increase — and much of that expected to focus along the coast. Long-term growth could be geometric.
Naturally, as near-shore property values and sales prices continue to rise, many of those seeking to buy property and live near the beach will look farther inland for more reachable prices —a projection that just as naturally leads to the development trends being seen in Millville and other neighboring towns in 2006. The planned Millville by the Sea community alone was set to contribute some 2,500 new homes to the town by the time construction is complete, perhaps by 2016.
As residents increase, so does business
Expanding from that growth is anticipated growth in the a rea of businesses and services. In 2006, Millville welcomed a
new prototype Super Giant grocery store, as well as a handful of banks, ready to support a booming coastal population. The new additional notably paralleled the town’s earliest days, when a country store owned by the family of 2006 Mayor Gary Willey was one of the biggest centers of commerce in the immediate area.
In 2006, planned communities — most notably Millville by the Sea — were also including retail, commercial service and community spaces within their boundaries, in a move designed to limit the need for trips on heavily-trafficked Route 26.
But the town nonetheless anticipated additional growth of businesses along the busy corridor, and in doing so set about to encourage the retention of existing residential-style structures to house the booming commercial district, as well as to focus the commercial growth there instead of in outlying areas or within ot her residential districts.
That will likely mean the town’s center developing in at least two different areas — along the Route 26 corridor, in the
the Freedom CD
FUTURE
continued from page 20
established commercial district, and possibly in the downtown district of the Millville by the Sea community, with its planned coffee shops, performance pavilion and carousel, family center, pools and library, and possibly a church and hotel.
A lingering question in 2006 was the future of the big-box store in the area. Is the entrance of the full-service Super Giant onto the scene a vision of what is to come? Is Wal-Mart or Target, Home Depot or Lowe’s — or a full-scale shopping mall in the town’s future?
If it is, is that a good thing for the town and its citizens? Will existing businesses struggle to compete or find a niche in which they can continue to thrive alongside such ventures? Will the arrival of such stores bring even more economic prosperity to the town and serve to provide jobs for its residents as the yearround population continues to rise?
In an era of unprecedented growth, is the town on its way to becoming the same kind of commercial and residential center it was 100 years ago, perhaps on a larger scale? That could well be the case.
Planning for the future
Unlike some of the other towns in the area, which have s tood firmly against continued annexation, Millville welcomed
t he expansion and prosperity that the looming building and commercial boom could provide. Moving from a $65,000 budget in the 2006 fiscal-year budget to a 2007 fiscal-year budget at $273,375, the town council foresaw both the benefits and hazards of the rapid expansion.
The town moved to add full-time employees in 2006 to ensure it would have both sufficient staff for the increasing workload and availability of staff to help residents, developers and property owners beyond the limited hours of availability that previously existed.
And with thousands of homes to be added over the next decade, the town could be looking in the near future at providing services on the scale of Bethany Beach, which in 2006 provided not only full-time staff at its town hall but municipal trash service and police protection, as well as entertainment opportunities and support for a thriving commercial district.
Savings to establish the Millville’s police department began in 2006, in anticipation of that growing need. Neighboring Ocean View may be the model for Millville’s growth in that area, having expanded in the handful of years prior to 2006 from some three to five officers to eight, with plans for continued growth in a new Ocean View police station, for which ground was broken as Millville’s centennial celebration approached.
A nticipated growth also impacted the town’s volunteer fire company, which asked the town in 2006 to consider an impact fee that would help fund the company through the anticipated
See FUTURE page 22
The town is headed for a lot of development, but it’s going to be controlled. The town officials are working very closely with developers to make sure that it is done in a reasonable fashion and that the town of Millville is in control of what the product looks like, so that the town of Millville is not impacted too much with development or traffic. We’ve spent a lot of time with Millville by the Sea and I think it shows.
Gary Willey, Millville Mayor
FUTURE
continued from page 21
need for expanded services. The Millville Volunteer Fire Company — whose fire hall was to serve as the central site for the centennial celebration — provides both fire and ambulance service to Millville and neighboring areas.
As with the Bethany Beach Volunteer Fire Company, the Millville company is likely looking at expanding its services in the near future into one or more additional fire stations to meet the demands of future growth. The BBFVC added a Fenwick Island station in 2002, and moved to incorporate live-in firefighters at both stations in 2005 and 2006. And paid firefighter positions could be on the long-term horizon for both companies.
T he area’s postal service was also set for expansion to meet the increasing demands of residents and visitors, with U.S. Postal Service officials looking in 2006 to move from their small buildi ng and limited parking on Route 26 at the border between
3bedroom, 2 bath home on landscaped quarter acre lot in community of Land Of Pleasant Living, in Millville. Eat-in kitchen, all appliances, central air, gazebo & 1 car attached garage. Ammenities include water access – ramp/dock in Banks Harbor Retreat. $265,000
CONSTRUCTION
New construction on Lot 30 on Baywinds Ct. in Seawinds. 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with a10x24 rear deck and a 2 car garage. Community has a pier. $309,000.
STREET, DAGSBORO
3bedroom, 2 bath, two story home on .53 acre lot on Main Street in Dagsboro. Features new kitchen, new carpet, sunroom, patio, new Bruce Pergo flooring and swingset. $249,900.
Large, 78.6 acre parcel of land, of which, 43 arecleared and 35 acres wooded. Frankford. Adjacent to wildlife preserve. $950,000.
Millville and Ocean View to a parcel that would allow a significantly larger building and parking area to be built and serve future populations.
Particularly with a large population of retirees, the Millville area can expect to continue to see an increasing need for medical services. While a number of medical practices are already located in the general area, the focus for expanding medical care has been — and remained in 2006 — on emergency services.
Summertime emergency medical care remained available at the Millville satellite office of the Beebe Medical Center. But pressure continued to be applied to keep the office open throughout the year, to help serve year-round residents, as well as the added influx of summer visitors, and to alleviate the need for all to travel to Lewes for hospital services at Beebe’s main campus or outpatient facility.
M illville’s centennial year of 2006 finally saw some movement in that direction, with the announcement of plans by Beebe Medical Center to obtain a parcel of land in the Millville
Price reduced $20,000! Very nice 3 bedroom, 2bath home on 2.68 acre lot near Millsboro. Features MBR, utility/laundry room, breakfast bar, all appliances, central air, attached 2 car garage, carport, two sheds with electric and much more, Close to Delaware Seashore StatePark. $349,000.
Approx. 5.88 wooded acre corner lot in the community of HollyForest. Approved for LPPseptic. $395,000.
Very nice two-story, 3 bedroom, 2 bath home on a corner lot in the lovely community of Ocean Farms. Features wood burning fireplace, kitchen/dining combo, all appliances, rear patio, storage and more. Only minutes to Bethany, shopping and restaurants. $325,000.
FUTURE
continued from page 22
area that would house some level of year-round services, if not a 24-hour emergency facility 12 months of the year.
Surely, the trend in a growing Sussex County — and particularly in the coastal section of the county, where some residents have become accustomed to avoiding daytime travel in the busy summer season — will be toward continued expansion of hospital services in the southeastern part of the county. Over decades, even a new hospital could be in the works for the community.
Seeking to alleviate some of the worst of the traffic congestion, state officials plan limited expansion of Route 26, though that plan was delayed in 2006 due to budget shortfalls. Regardless of the scope of that project, area residents expect there will continue to be pressure on east-west travel routes as the overall population continues to increase and new homes and businesses line up along the road and its tributaries.
Long-range plans from the state are also looking at possible improvements to north-south routes, and residents continue to try to look outside the box for a perfect solution to the traffic headaches. While neighboring beach towns are loathe to bring b each visitors to the towns in bulk, Millville and its inland neighbors will undoubtedly be looking toward mass transit as one way to help alleviate the pressure on Route 26, in particular.
A lready, the state will encourage outlying communities to use shuttle buses to bring residents to state-controlled beaches outside Fenwick Island and at the Indian River Inlet.
Int he f utur e, t hat could also mean DART First State transit ex pan sio na long the east-west route, joining up with existing seaso nal routes that tie Bethany Beach to Ocean City, Md., to the southa nd t oR eho b ot hB each and Lewes to the north, and possib le ex ten sion of the route to year-round.
Wit ha burgeoning population of retirees and seasonal visito rs, such a tran sit system could mean many fewer cars on local ro ads, a s travelers stop at town centers, shopping districts, restaurants, beach access points and outlying commercial areas even visiting Rehoboth Beach and Ocean City, or venturing as far as Cape May, N.J. — all without putting their keys in the ignition.
Core population growth brings auxiliary residents
The trend of an expanding business district is also likely to continue and to, in turn, fuel the need for new year-round and seasonal workers to support a population of retirees and seasonal visitors.
That will include those new police officers, firefighters, town employees and hospital staff, as well as extending into retail workers, business owners, hospitality-industry staffers, service providers and teachers.
With its ongoing building campaign in 2005 and 2006, the Indian River School District has begun to not only improve existing school facilities but to accommodate the growing number of year-round residents — and particularly young families with children — who have relocated to the area.
Future growth of the schools may largely be determined by the makeup of residential communities such as Millville By the Sea.
If the homes are bought in numbers by younger families with children — or young people with plans for them — the school district will naturally be under pressure in the coming decades to continue expansion of its schools, as well as to adapt to the changing character of the area’s residents, who have begun to come increasingly from outside the area — from urban areas with cosmopolitan cultures and melting-pot populations.
On the other hand, continuing focus on retirees would slow t he need for adaptation by the school district — perhaps delaying the inevitable and refocusing development plans on outlying areas as those providing services to the retiree population settle out side the t own.
Inde ed,t he school system may be a window in the future of t he town and its environs, as the farm families who have tradit io nal ly c al le d the area home for the last 100 years are suppleme ntedby retirees looking for a home near the beach, and slowly but more steadily supplemented by those from outside the region w ho w il lbeco me part of the economic boom brought on by coa stal development.
The town stands in its coming decades and the century beyond its centennial to see an ever more diverse population, as well as increasing options for families — old stock and newcom-
FUTURE page 24
“
In Millville’s early days, the town was the hub of commerce in the region, boasting the shops, doctors, etc. I think right now we’re seeing the curve towards full circle. With the recent business and residential growth and interest, in 20 years Millville may again be the hub of commerce in our region.
Karen McGrath, Executive Director, Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce
continued from page 23
ers alike — to live full lives year-round without even needing to leave the area.
A farewell to the past, opportunities for the the future
While it may be the end of an era for some families and some of their traditional ways, such changes may also mark hope for the future of Millville.
Economic prosperity and an ever-increasing range of options for careers and lifestyle may offer a tantalizing choice to Millville’s native-born children in the coming decades and b eyond: They can choose to leave for a more urban setting, as has traditionally happened in rural communities in recent decades, or return home to reap the benefits of both longstandi ng family ties and a burgeoning economy that brings a suburban model to their homes near the beach.
Indeed, the town may come full-circle in terms of the close
continued from page 12
“Gary is the greatest to work with, to work for,” said Sue Knox,the town’s first clerk, whom Willey and council hired in 2004. “Our friendship goes back a long ways. He is the greatest thing that ever happened to this town.”
But after serving on the town’s government for more than two decades, carrying on a three-generation family tradition, Willey will likely be stepping down soon. After buying property just outside of the town, he will move his family out of town for
family ties and generations of residents who will call it home. The draw of history, location and a booming economy may prove to be the lifeblood of the formerly quiet community and its several hundred residents. The town stands to benefit from the best of the past and the highest ideals of the future.
So, what will Millville be like in 2031 or 2106? Only time will tell. In that time, townsfolk may go from concern about traffic to flying their personal aircraft to work and play. Children living in the town today may live unlimited lifespans and be able to choose any path of life that suits them, without needing to leave their hometown.
As population expands, so may opportunities for all who live in the town. And despite so many new faces moving to the town, residents may find a new sense of community developing fr om the evolving countenance and new focal points of the town’s everyday life.
At present, on the eve of Millville’s centennial, residents reco gnize that major change is on the horizon, and many look forward to a future where the sky is the limit and life is as bountiful as a sunny summer day.
the firsttime in 100 years and will no longer be able to serve as a representative of Millville’s citizenry.
“I think it’sgoing to be hard for him because he’s done this for so long,” Collins said. He really takes pride in the town.”
But Willey himself has no complaints. After taking over the town’s administration with less than $1,000 in its bank account and leaving it with more than a $1 million — and growing — he only has one feeling: pride.
“I’m really proud,” he said. “It shows a lot of hard work. Millville has come from a town that had a town hall with no running water to a town hall that is financially fine and has a 3,000square-foot town hall. The centennial is just icing on the cake.”
HISTORY
and horses,” he said Phillips remembered riding to school sometimes ( just to show off), tying the ponies to a tree for the day, or riding out to the beach toconsort with the Guardsmen who were patrolling on horseback themselves.
He graduated from the Lord Baltimore School in 1948, but even then he said there still weren’t enough kids to put together a football team. The big sports were basketball in the winter and baseball in the summer.
Phillips remembered playing baseball in the lot in front of Amos McCabe’s store (due east of the Millville Fire Hall), against the boys from “uptown,” nearer to Clarksville.
Downtown
In the early days, downtown Millville consisted of four or five dry goods/grocery stores, a feed store and Dr. Hocker’s office. It would be a few years until the locals built a fire hall, but that block had always been the central gathering point.
Cobb remembered an old-fashioned fire truck (pull wagon with a pump) parked in the garage behind Dr. Hocker’s, and a hand-cranked siren above the doctor’s office — but even the hand-cranked siren was a relatively modern development. For years, people simply responded to the center of town whenever the bell at the Millville U.M. rang for two
Photo by Submitted
A young Grace Collins (on horse) poses with her family outside their Millville home.
minutes straight.
Firefighters purchased their first motorized fire truck in 1936, and built the hall in the late 1930s, according to the Millville Volunteer Fire Company. It was, and is, situated on the lot where the local boys played ball, bordered on the west by the store run by Phillips’ father, Emmons, and on the east by the store run by McCabe (and later Robert Willey), to the east.
McCabe also had a feed store, right across the street from the fire hall, and Charlie Derrickson had a store where the Fat Tuna Grill is now located, between the feed store and Dr. Hocker’s. As Collins remembered, Derrickson was always willing to take fresh eggs or butter, in lieu of cash.
The lot where Dr. Hocker used to “pull teeth, sew you up if you got hurt,” as Robinson put it, has seen a few changes since those days. There was a store along the front for a time, where one could purchase patent medicines. Then the Palmatary family took it over and installed a soda counter, which certainly made it one of Millville’s big social gathering spots. The store eventually passed to members of the Winterbottom family, who ran operations from the original building, for many years.
Looking eastward from the downtown area, there were fields, and beyond, the schoolhouse that predated what is today the Lord Baltimore Elementary School. Children of all ages shared the old school, but high-schoolers moved into the new building once it was completed in 1932.
For several years (until the old school was torn down) the buildings stood side by side, and elementary students continued to take their lessons in the classrooms closer to Old School Lane. Whereas the modern school is mostly over the line in Ocean View, the old school truly belonged to Millville.
Westward, past downtown, there was the store that belonged to Wolfe’s grandfather, Elisha Dukes, and then to her father, Harry Dukes Sr. Although the store burned in 1930, Wolfe remembered conversations with her father about the range of goods they sold — including men’s jeans for 50 cents a pair, “75 cents for overhauls.”
Another Dukes family property survives, right next door (due east), where local artist Laura Hickman has opened a gallery. It was once a gas station — an Atlantic gas station, and apparently another popular hangout for Millville youth probably up to no good.
Out toward the western edge of town, past the lodge and the church, there was Horace Evans’ garage. Robinson remembered him as a right sort — the kind of mechanic who’d clean a sparkplug, rather than just sell you a new one.
A bit further along, as Cobb recalled, there’d been Herbert Evans’ grocery (and shoe store) in the somewhat dilapidated building due west of Shop of the Four Sisters, and an auction house behind the grocery.
And all the way out at White’s Neck Road, where there was once a gas station and now the Millville Pet Shop, Cobb remembered it as Lester Kauffman’s Studebaker dealership — and before that, his tractor showroom.
Out near the western edge of town, Debbie Evans runs the Miller’s Creek gift shop in the same building, built in 1947, where Richard Wood and Wilbur Hocker opened their hardware store.
And Franklin Bennett continues to keep the family tradition alive atJ.S. Bennett&Sons(truck and trailer rentals and towing), now in its thirdgeneration. John Swainey Bennett got his start in the area at Horace Evans’ garage, and transitioned to his own shop in the early 1930s.
Bennet had started out building truck bodies for hauling poultry, according to his daughter, Betty Evans.
Acentury in perspective
As Wolfe summed it up, “it was a different time, a different life.” Isolated, but in many ways, she suggested, early Millville had offered as good a life as a person might hope for, even today.
“There were a lot of things we didn’t have, but we didn’t know any better — so we didn’t mind,” Evans reflected.
Not everyone had cars, but those who did shared them, Cobb remembered, and they didn’t hesitate to pick up children walking to Lord Baltimore (especially if it was raining).
“It was a very small, wholesome, rural town,” Phillips added. “It was laid-back — the whole town, the whole system. I loved it.”
Millville’s story may be the story of every town. They struggle upward from the forest floor, and their citizens pour their labor into them, that they might grow strong and straight.
Millville has grown slowly over the past century — the U.S. Census of 1910 found nearly 200 men and women living in town, and nearly 100 years later, that number still hadn’t reached 300.
But whatever changes come, the town will always have that slow century for its heritage — a solid start toward a noble maturity.
Center
continued from page 15
edly continue to, not only attract to Millville residents but neighbors, near and far.
“I think its god for the area,” said Darbie McMaster, a Dagsboro resident. “It gives people more choices.”
For the better part of the last decade, Jim Zeender, a Silver Spring, Md., native and resident, has vacationed in the LewesRehoboth area. But this year, he has realigned his sights a bit, deciding to spend his spring and summer excursion in the Bethany Beach corridor. There are now more options for him to do so, he said.
“This is my first time here,” Zeender said, “And this is very convenient.”
And it is not only convenient for visitors. Nassau Gallery will give Millville a taste of the arts in their own town — a luxury for which they would previously have had to travel to Ocean View or Bethany Beach.
The Town Center will also offer the first steakhouse in Millville, a place for residents to get drinks, and a 14-ounce New York strip steak, and not have to leave town. And at the Giant, lo cal residents can fill prescriptions, grab a pound of thinly-sliced ham and buy a movie, amongst the visitors.
But probably the most important thing the center will offer to Millville, and other local residents, is employment. Working
b ehind the Quiznos counter, for example, might be a good first job. Tips should be abundant at the steakhouse, and Giant alone already employs 125 people, serving both lifelong residents and the increasing non-native population, which will likely only continue to grow as the town continues to expand.
About 3,000 homes and a Home Depot are planned for Route 17, at what seems to be another center of that expansion. Town officials are saving for the one-day addition of a police department. And at the most recent town council meeting, Millville Fire Chief Graig Temple asked for money to help pay for the ever-growing amount of local services the volunteer department provides. The Town Center seems to just be the beginning of the growth, and a vision of what may be the come.
“I think it will have a good affect with all of the growth,” Millsboro resident Cassandra Manuel, who admitted to some mixed feelings about the changes to the area.
While growth will translate into more traffic, it also harkens on a more diverse lifestyle and more opportunities for both residents and visitors, old-timer and newcomer alike. The Town Center is just one part of this larger transition for the town, which claimed less than 300 full-time residents in 2006, only about double the amount of people that work in the new Super Giant.
But with the coming of new people and businesses has come ne w opportunities for those who live in the area, as well as a chance for the town to guide growth in a way that officials hope will serve all of its citizens into the next century of Millville’s existence.
...Minutes from sand and surf
A future of change,a future of service
By Darin J. McCann Editor
The more things change, the more they stay the same. A century in the books of an incorporated Millville has passed, and much of the aesthetic landscape remains. Farmer’s fields dot the landscape and historical buildings like the Masonic Lodge still stand tall in the picture that is Millville.
Sure, town council meetings are no longer held in a bathroom-less building, and many of the faces in the town no longer belong to people whose ancestors color the annals of the town, but there is still that feel of a small town, of a community ... of an extended family.
So, where does the town go from here? Will it maintain the hometown-feel and maintain a strong business community along Route 26, or will spaceships land next to the fire hall long enough to eject tiny green men with a thirst for bald men in really nice shoes?
seen in the town’s documented history.
So, yes, there will be change.
There will be more people living in the town, and there will be more people working in the town. There will be less open fields, and less opportunity to enjoy relaxing drives along Millville’s roads. In a nutshell, there will be more, and there will be less.
Throughout this publication you’ve seen U.S. Census numbers illustrating how slowly population numbers have changed throughout the last 100 years, expecially when one compares them to figures from neighboring towns. Those numbers are real. We’ve also told you about plans for new home developments and an increase in stores. Those, too, are very real.
What that leaves us with is a wave of growth never before
Allow me to pontificate on a few other changes for Millville’s future:
• There will be a full-time police department, and a battle down the road concerning just how big to build the new police station. Consider the latter an educated guess.
• There will be several restaurants opening on Route 26 in the the town, along with a continued growth in art galleries.
• Soy will become extremely valuable in this nation, either as a fuel alternative or a more powerful player in nutritional circles, providing an oomph to farmers — thus convincing a few to keep plying their craft in Millville and the surrounding areas.
• The many new faces in the town are going to add a lot to the community. There are going to be new ideas and fresh energy coming from every direction.
Maria Fraser
a select number of luxury townhomes nestled in a private wooded setting… a cloistered enclave with immediate accesss to life’s necessities, and a convenient local’s route to bethany beach.
■
envisioned and crafted by the pre-eminent builder of delaware’s route 54 corridor. naturally secluded. easily accessible. remarkably centralized.
