Along the Kirkwood Highway

Images of America: Delaware

by William Francis

The Kirkwood Highway is an almost six-mile portion of State Route 2 in New Castle County, Delaware. Built as a bypass of Marshallton after the opening of Delaware Park at Stanton in 1937, it was meant to provide Wilmington-area horse-racing fans a straighter and faster route to the track. It is named after a distinguished officer of the American Revolution, Robert Kirkwood Jr., who was born at his family's farm along Polly Drummond Hill Road in Newark in 1756. Since it opened to automobile traffic, the highway has undergone numerous renovations and the scenery along its route has changed dramatically. Today, it is the fifth-busiest roadway in the state and is lined by shopping centers, national retailers, fast-food and chain restaurants, gas stations, subdivisions, and historic sites. Through vintage photographs, Along the Kirkwood Highway takes a nostalgic look back at the travel corridor, its cross streets, and familiar sites along its path.

128 pages, Paperback

First published June 2, 2014

About the author

I spent ten years living in various locations throughout the United States. When I returned home to Delaware, my nomadic experience inspired me to write. I wanted to show the great and unique history of my home state in vintage photographs, so I contracted with Arcadia Publishing and produced 4 books related to the First State: The DuPont Highway, America's first divided highway; Along the Kirkwood Highway, Along the Christina River, and Newark Then & Now, a retrospective of my home town. My first fiction, A Life Told to None, is set in Newark and includes many childhood experiences. The novel is a mystery without a murder, or more direct, why did a friend commit suicide? The Umpire is a semi-autobiographical novel, the story of my pursuit to become a professional baseball umpire. Seacrest is a novel set in Maryland just prior to the U. S. involvement in World War 1 and it reveals a little known fact, German saboteurs were in America. Whether my books are fact or fiction, I hope to entertain as well as inform and leave the reader with a satisfying experience.

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