National Register Listing

Felton Railroad Station

E. Railroad Ave., Felton, DE

The Felton Railroad"station Is a significant architectural symbol of the central role of the Delaware Railroad in the post-Civil War economic development of Delaware as a means of rapid and efficient transfer of passengers, goods and produce throughout the Delmarva Peninsula.

The Delaware Railroad, connecting the agricultural hinterlands of Delaware and portions of the Eastern Shore of Maryland to northern markets by way of Wilmington and Philadelphia, represented a regional culmination of the railroad building mania sweeping America in the mid-nineteenth century. Envisioned as a link between existing northern and southern railways, the Delaware Railroad operated the length of the state by 1859, and by 1866 was extended to the town of Crisfield, Maryland, on the Chesapeake Bay.

Prior to the construction of the railroad, Felton consisted of a few frame buildings scattered along Main Street, a trans-peninsular road connecting the early-nineteenth-century town of Frederica, Delaware, on the Murderkill River, with Choptank Bridge some 25 miles to the west in Maryland.

The economic and commercial optimism generated by the railroad brought into being a new community in Felton. A 1868 map of the town in Beer's Atlas of Delaware, portrays the town's plan for future development along a gridded street plan centered on a new town square several blocks to the north of Main Street. The Felton Railroad Station, built in 1868 just as the Atlas of Delaware was published, was conspicuously sited as a focal point to encourage planned growth in the undeveloped area of town that filled in during the later decades of the century. The town was named for Samuel N. Felton of Philadelphia, elected president of the Delaware Railroad Company in 1865 and a member of its board for over 35 years.

In similar fashion, other towns springing up along the route of the railroad at this time were named for other railroad officials.

Manlove Hayes, a director of the Delaware Railroad Company, accurately appraised the social and economic benefits arising from the railway in his History of the Delaware Railroad (1888) :

"Well cultivated farms had succeeded to the dense forests and jungles that stretched for miles together on the borders of the railway when it was first opened. New villages had grown up at Clayton, Wyoming, Felton, Harrington, Farmington and the other principal stations. Tasteful residences, public schools, academies and churches in the larger towns presented inducements to people seeking new homes and brought many settlers to the neighborhood. The substantial and effective appearance of the new brick Passenger Depots and grounds, ornamented with plants and flowers, which were to be seen at many of the stations, showed the travelers that the managers of the railroad were performing a commendable part in their educating, cultivating, and refining the tastes of a people."

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1981.