Our writer goes to Dover to see the Little Creek Inn, Where Pigs Fly, Sewell Biggs, Dover Downs Hotel and other historic sites.
What better place to start when exploring a new town or area, but at the Visitors Bureau? After a breakfast of fruit and muffins at The Little Creek Inn, we went to the Delaware Visitors Museum. This state agency is a combination of a visitor’s center and local museum. There are 11 museums in Dover alone, and they work together to showcase their town and its history. The exhibits here are educationally based and change on an average of once a year The display we saw was a history of, and an in depth look at, Delaware Silversmiths. This museum like all the state museums is free of charge and not only holds a wealth of history, but a wealth of information for the traveler.
A tour guide from the Visitors Center took us a short walking distance away to the State House Museum, the restored colonial capital dating back to 1792. We learned that Delaware has 3 counties: Kent, New Castle and Sussex and 3 judges, one from each county presided in this courtroom until 1923. It was restored in 1976, and it was in this building that the Senate and the House of Representatives met.
We then toured the Sewell Biggs Museum located directly above the Visitor’s Center Museum. This art museum was opened in 1993 by funding of a local philanthropist – Mr. Sewell Biggs. What began as a showcase for Mr. Bigg’s extensive personal collection has developed into a 14 room gallery museum, featuring furniture from the 1700’s, domestic items such as "tankards to Teacups" and original artworks. In an effort to attract families there are children’s labels in each room giving a simplified commentary, which I loved and found helpful for myself.
The museum is free and is a great stop for any art or history lover.
Not faraway is the Johnson Victrola Museum. We went from fine art to fine Victrolas. Here we learned that Eldridge Johnson, who lived in this area from age 2 to 14, was the inventor of the "Victrola Talking Machine" in 1901. Prior to this discovery, Eldridge worked as a machinist apprentice, due to the fact that his family thought he was academically an " under achiever". I love the story of an underdog making good, and Eldridge definitely made out well. Not only did he design the "Victrola" as we remember it, but he marketed his company with the famous dog – Nipper. By the late 1920’s, he built his company into a million dollar enterprise.
In this museum you can hear an actual antique, wind up Victrola play a Caruso recording. You can also browse the upstairs gallery which houses an extensive collection owned, at one time, by a private collector.
We then headed to town and ate lunch at W.T. Smithers on State Street. This popular gathering spot opened in 1985 in a Victorian style building that was, at one time, a funeral home. The bar is in the spot of what was once the embalming room – some things don’t change. For lunch Don and I had the chunky chicken salad. We learned over lunch that Delaware is the "Chicken Capital of the Country" – who knew?
From here we went to "Dover Downs". Just as I had not known that there were more chickens than people in Delaware, I had also not known that Delaware had Casino gambling! New Yorkers tend to patronize Atlantic City, and believe me this is a great change of pace, within driving distance.
Dover Downs Hotel is a beautiful 232 room deluxe facility that boasts 8 deluxe rooms, a 25,000 square foot meeting room, and a grand ballroom. The hotel sits on the edge of the Dover Downs Raceway, where both horse racing and auto racing are highlighted for at least six months of the year. The hotel is only a few years old and the slot casino opened in 1995. There are 2,000 slot machines and as we entered the hotel lobby the faint ringing of bells seemed to call me to each of them.
The Dover Downs complex has 10 restaurants and bars. They draw clientele from the surrounding states and are at 90% occupancy year-round. After we settled into our spacious room, I was drawn to test out the payout record of the slots –purely for research purposes.
In no time at all, I gave a small donation to the Delaware economy.
The next stop to visit was the National Wildlife Refuge in Bombay Hook, a federally funded area. This is an obvious "must see" spot for nature observers, birders, photographers and families wanting to share a nature environment. There is a 12-mile auto tour route with a booklet describing various stops. Due to the recent snowfall, the routes were limited. One of the missions of this refuge is to provide a safe feeding and resting place for migrating birds and we saw many. In addition, we spotted red fox, white tailed deer, pheasants, hawks and Canadian geese, all in their natural habitats.
Spring and fall is the busiest time of the year here, with the spring attracting birds and the fall attracting ducks and geese. Winter is a slow season and we had the auto trail all to ourselves. Out in the middle of the 16,000 acres it was eerily quiet yet beautiful, as we searched for wildlife.
It was cold out and so we cut our visit short and set out to find "The Village Inn", the restaurant owned by our B & B owners Bob and Carol Thomas. When we arrived it was warm inside, with fireplaces roaring in the dining areas. We had a delicious dinner beginning with clam chowder, fried calamari and clams oreganata. For dinner, we had the stuffed roast tenderloin and everything proved as satisfying as Chef Bob said it would. You can always trust a Brooklynite.
