Photography By Scott Suchman
Dover has a split personality. It’s not a Jekyll-and-Hyde, good-versus-evil thing; it just has personalities that are appealing in very different ways.
One facet—let’s call this one Old Dover—consists of the carefully preserved but still functional historic buildings in the downtown section of what has been the Kent County seat since 1683 and the state capital since 1777. “Most towns either have a Victorian or a Colonial section,” says John R. Alstadt, Jr., a local historian and curator of the Delaware State Police Museum. “We have both.”
The Victorian section consists of magnificent homes on both sides of State Street north of Reed in an area called Fulton’s Addition. “James Alexander Fulton built it in the 1880s, and you can tell where it is because he named the streets after his kids, Cecil and Mary,” says Alstadt, whose book With Love to Yourself and Baby, The Story of the Poison Candy Murder details a murder-by-mail—America’s first—committed on The Green in 1898.
The hub of Old Dover is now and forever The Green, which was laid out in 1717 by no less than William Penn, who envisioned it as the town’s commercial area. Today The Green is a kind of a working Williamsburg whose Colonial-era structures—including one on the site of the Golden Fleece tavern where Delaware became “The First State” to ratify the U.S. Constitution—house law firms, government bureaus, and bail bondsmen. On one side of The Green stands the old Delaware State House Museum, restored and furnished to appear just as it did when it opened in 1792 as domicile for the entire state government.
Legislative Hall, on Legislative Mall, has headquartered the Delaware General Assembly since 1933. According to Jim Rafte, a local businessman who moonlights as a tour guide, the interior artwork reflects the second-smallest state’s deep rivalries between northern Delaware (above the Delaware & Chesapeake Canal) and southern Delaware (below the canal). Paintings in the House of Representatives chamber in the north wing memorialize great sites in northern Delaware—New Castle County and the urban cauldron of Wilmington. While in the south wing, Senate artwork honors Sussex and Kent counties, or “slower, lower Delaware.” “Northern Delaware is intense, like other places in the Northeast,” says Rafte. “But southern Delaware is in a lot of ways more Southern than Virginia or North Carolina.”
Across the mall, the Delaware State Visitor Center contains a tourist information desk, gift shop, and two downstairs galleries with ongoing exhibits—one displaying Delaware silver and the other paraphernalia from the eight U.S. Navy vessels named USS Delaware. The paintings in the fourteen galleries of the Sewell C. Biggs Museum of American Art on the two upstairs floors range from Colonial portraiture to Hudson River School landscapes to lurid dime-novel illustrations by local artist Frank E. Schoonover.
A block east of The Green, the Johnson Victrola Museum memorializes E.R. Johnson, the Delaware lad who founded the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1901, with a replica 1920s record store, the original painting of Nipper digging “His Master’s Voice,” and background music from (pre-RCA) Victor recordings. On the same block, the Delaware Archaeology Museum charts 12,000 years of local history, and the Delaware Museum of Small Town Life walks visitors through a general store, pharmacy, print shop, and other early-1900s enterprises.
Small-town commerce today on and near Loockerman Street, Dover’s main drag, is a bit less utilitarian. The Delaware Made General Store in the 1775 John Bullen House features local pottery, baskets, and sundry items adorned with blue hen chickens (official state bird) or ladybugs (official state insect). “Delaware has a pretty good tradition of arts and crafts, but it’s just not well-publicized,” says Tom Smith, proprietor of Delaware Made. “I have seen work that runs the gauntlet from oil paintings to woven baskets to pottery and everywhere in between—and it is as finely made as anyplace else.”
The “whimsical to elegantly sophisticated” fine handcrafts at Beyond Dimensions includes jewelry of every conceivable natural substance, glasswork by nationally recognized artists, and a large year-round selection of bodacious menorahs. The Amish are another prominent constituency of Old Dover, so much so that the county publishes a pamphlet with tips for sharing roads with horse-drawn buggies ("Don’t get frustrated or impatient and begin honking the horn—this will only startle the horse and jeopardize lives."). For closer (and less contentious) encounters, shop at Byler’s Country Store, a sizable supermarket that stocks Amish and Mennonite necessities such as bulk grains and spices and has an entire wing of wood-burning stoves. Or deal directly with Amish farmers and merchants at Spence’s Bazaar, a produce and flea market and auction in central Dover open only on Tuesdays and Fridays.
The more modern side of Dover—we’ll call this part “Happening Dover"—is epitomized by Dover Downs, an adult pleasure dome situated within two miles of The Green. Dover Downs is immense. Most of the hugeness consists of the 140,000 seats in the grandstand of the Dover International Speedway where, twice a year, the build-up to NASCAR Winston Cup races (on June 1 and Sept. 21 in 2003) turns this sedate town of 34,000 into a supercharged city of nearly a quarter-million. The big draw: hyperkinetic action on the 24-degree banked track they call “The Monster Mile.”
Outside race weeks, Dover Downs is a prime specimen of what the “gaming” industry calls “racinos” (horse racing and casino). From November through April, harness races take place on a much smaller track set within the Monster Mile. Watch the trotters—and bet while you dine—at the moderately priced Winners Circle or the all-you-can-eat (for $12.50) Festival Buffet. Throughout the year, the track’s indoor grandstand offers simulcast betting from tracks nationwide.
But Dover Downs’s biggest and loudest attraction is Dover Down Slots, where 2,000-plus machines shake, rattle, flash, and bleep—and occasionally pay off—every day of the year (except Christmas and Easter) from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. and Sundays from 1 p.m. Options range from traditional one-armed bandits to sophisticated, computerized “video gaming terminals,” with Hummers and Escalades on display as enticements to go for the jackpot. Dover Downs claims to have the state’s largest assemblage of nickel slots, but you can get lucky big time in the Premier Slots alcove where wagers range from $1 to $50. Chill out in the 240-room Dover Downs Hotel and Conference Center, the quiet and downright tasteful year-old property across the corridor from the casino.
Locals differ as to whether Dover Downs hits the jackpot for all. “It’s a new dimension in Dover, an opportunity for another quality-of-life element,” says Roy Klein, chairman of the Central Delaware Economic Council, ticking off the magnetic powers of its four-star restaurant (Michele’s), live entertainment, additional meeting spaces, and a new type of gambling. “It’s made a positive difference. I can’t come up with any negatives.”
But innkeeper Carol Thomas can. “There are pros and cons, but they’ve really hurt my business,” says Thomas. “They’ve attracted a lot of the corporate business we used to get, even though we match their rates.”
Thomas’s establishment, the Little Creek Inn Bed and Breakfast, is a National Register of Historic Places 1860 farmhouse east of town with four guestrooms furnished—but not cluttered—with French and country antiques. And the nearby Cowgills Corner Bed and Breakfast is a two-guestroom working sheep and llama farm where your dog or horse is welcome, too.
Another outskirts-of-Dover attraction, the John Dickinson Plantation, is the scrupulously authentic Georgian-style home of the man called the “Penman of the American Revolution,” for writing the Articles of Confederation and other political documents. How scrupulously authentic is it? Costumed tour guides can’t wear clothes made in Williamsburg because Williamsburg uses sewing machines!
Almost next door on Dover Air Force Base is what was (and may again be) Kent County’s number-one attraction: the Air Mobility and Command Museum. Housed inside and outside the hangar where secret World War II rockets were developed is a collection of classic planes—a feisty P-51 Mustang, a B-17 Flying Fortress adorned with a morale-boosting pinup, and a C-47 Skytrain (a.k.a. Gooney Bird) that earned its stripes on D-Day, among more than twenty-five aircraft. Although the museum was declared off-limits after 9/11, it is expected to again welcome the general public by late spring.
That’s not the only positive development. “In land mass we have tripled in sized over the last thirty-plus years. It’s bigger but it’s better,” says James L. Hutchison, Dover’s mayor for the past nine years. Hutchison credits this to the steady growth of an economy balanced between the sectors of government (state and county), the military (Dover Air Force Base), entertainment (Dover Downs), academia (Delaware State University, Wesley College, and three other institutions), and private industry (units of Procter & Gamble, Kraft, and Playtex among others). “This city is unique: It’s still beautiful, it’s still clean, and it’s still safe,” says Hutchison. “You need to come.”
Theodore Fischer wrote Don’t Bypass Leonardtown in the September & October 2002 issue.
Locals’ Guide to Dover
Dover freebies: Free admission to all museums (except the Delaware Agricultural Museum and Village; adults $3), free parking in The Green/downtown area, free admission and parking for Dover Downs horse racing and casino, free soft drinks for Dover Downs slots players, and—throughout the state—sales-tax-free shopping.
When you can’t find it at Home Depot: Dover Hardware, an old-time hardware store in a Victorian-era building in downtown Dover. 128 W. Loockerman St., 302-674-0200.
Where locals live large: Blue Coat Inn, a tranquil lakeside spot for traditional seafood dishes, prime steaks, and signature peach crisp dessert. 800 N. State St., 302-674-1776.
Get your motor runnin’: Monster Mile Racing lets you drive or co-pilot genuine NASCAR-style racers on the Dover Downs track. 800-468-6946 or http://www.monsterracing.com.
For the birds: Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge on Delaware Bay has prime vantage points for viewing migrating waterfowl and songbirds. 302-653-6872 or http://www.bombayhook.fws.gov.
Eavesdrop on pols: Belly up to the bar at the Lobby House, a watering hole near Legislative Hall. 9 E. Loockerman St., 302-741-2420.
Coffee and…: Sandwiches, salads, quiches, panini du jour, and friendly service downtown at the Steamin’ Bean Café, 25. W. Loockerman St., 302-734-3992.
For CSI wannabes: Test your sleuthing skills at the mock crime scenes on display at the Delaware State Police Museum. 1425 N. Dupont Hwy., 302-739-7700.
Best crab cakes in county: Devour them at Sambo’s Tavern in Leipsic, a fishing village five miles north of Dover. Open April through November. 283 Fort St., Leipsic, 302-674-9724.
Contacts
Kent Count Tourism
800-233-KENT
http://www.visitdover.com or http://www.cityofdover.com
Delaware State House Museum
The Green
302-739-4266
Legislative Hall & Mall
800-282-8545 or 302-739-4114
Delaware State Visitor Ctr.
406 Federal St.
302-739-4266
Sewell C. Biggs Museum of American Art
406 Federal St.
302-674-2111
http://www.biggsmuseum.org
Johnson Victrola Museum
Bank Lane & New Sts.
302-739-4266
Delaware Archaeology Museum and Museum of Small Town Life
316 S. Governors Ave.
302-739-4266
Delaware Made General Store
214 S. State St.
302-736-1419
Beyond Dimensions
59 S. Governors Ave.
302-674-9070
Byler’s Country Store
1368 Rose Valley School Rd.
302-674-1689
Spence’s Bazaar
550 S. New St.
302-734-3441
Dover International Speedway
800-441-RACE
http://www.doverspeedway.com
Dover Downs Slots & Simulcast
800-711-5882
http://www.doverdowns.com
Dover Downs Hotel
1131 N. Dupont Highway
866-473-7378
http://www.doverdowns.com/hotel
Little Creek Inn B&B
2623 N. Little Creek Rd.
888-804-1300
http://www.littlecreekinn.com
Cowgill’s Corner B&B
7299 Bayside Dr.
302-734-5743
John Dickinson Plantation
340 Kitts Hummock Rd.
302-739-3277
Air Mobility Command Museum
1301 Heritage Road
Dover Air Force Base
302-677-5938
http://www.amcmuseum.org
