DuPont Village Historic District

Last updated
DuPont Village Historic District
Dupont, WA 04.jpg
Street corner in the district
USA Washington location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
LocationRoughly bounded by Santa Cruz, Brandywine, DuPont, and Penniman, DuPont, Washington
Coordinates 47°05′49″N122°37′50″W / 47.096904°N 122.630578°W / 47.096904; -122.630578 Coordinates: 47°05′49″N122°37′50″W / 47.096904°N 122.630578°W / 47.096904; -122.630578
Area43 acres (17 ha)
Built1906-1915
Architect E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
Architectural style Bungalow, Craftsman, American Foursquare
NRHP reference # 87001542 [1]
Added to NRHPSeptember 10, 1987

The DuPont Village Historic District is a historic district and neighborhood of DuPont, Washington. It is roughly bounded by Brandywine Ave, DuPont Ave, Santa Cruz St, and Penniman St. [2] The village was originally a company town built by the DuPont chemical company to house workers for the nearby dynamite plant.

Contents

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987; the listing included 80 contributing buildings on 43 acres (17 ha). [1]

History

The village is near the area where the original Fort Nisqually once stood. The fort was built by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1833 and operated until 1869, after which the last officer at the fort, Edward Huggins, gained ownership of the land. The Huggins family sold the land to E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company in 1906. [3]

The DuPont company underwent a corporate restructuring and expansion under Pierre S. du Pont beginning in 1903. During this expansion, the company decided to build a new dynamite plant in the Pacific Northwest, spurred by the growth of mining in Alaska, the building of railroads on the West Coast, and the construction of buildings and infrastructure in western cities. The company chose the old Fort Nisqually site as the location of the plant due in part to its proximity to roads, rail lines, and marine shipping lanes. Construction on the plant began in 1908, and the company began building a permanent village to house the plant workers about a mile southeast of the fort site the following year. [2]

The first 58 houses in the village were built in 1909, including particularly large houses for the plant superintendent and assistant superintendent. [4] Construction continued over the following decade with six more houses in 1912, six more in 1915, and 33 more in 1916. By 1917, the company town also had two stores as well as a butcher shop, club house, hotel, playground, school, and church. Generally, the size of a worker's house correlated with the position of the worker in the company hierarchy, with most lower-level workers living in smaller houses while workers in management positions at the plant living in larger houses. [2] DuPont named the village streets after important people in the company or other plants run by the company. For example, Brandywine Ave was named after Brandywine Creek in Delaware, the site of DuPont's first gunpowder plant; Santa Cruz street was named after a plant in California; Penniman Ave was named after Russell S. Penniman, chemist and manager of DuPont's west coast operations; and Barksdale Ave was named after Hamilton Barksdale, a company executive who helped select the location for the Pacific Northwest dynamite plant. [2] [4]

The dynamite plant operated for nearly 70 years, from 1909 to 1976. Explosives manufactured by the plant were used for military efforts during World War I and World War II as well as for numerous civilian projects such as mining, railroad construction, and building of the Panama Canal. [2] The plant employed 280 workers in 1943, of which 115 lived in the village. Most of the remainder commuted in from Tacoma. By 1959, the plant had produced over 1 billion pounds (450 million kilograms) of dynamite. [5]

The DuPont company owned all the houses in the village until 1951, at which point they no longer saw the need to operate the company town due to improvements in transportation to the area as well as a larger portion of plant workers living in distant neighborhoods outside the village. In 1951, the company began selling the houses to the workers, and the residents chose to incorporate as the town of DuPont, Washington. The former butcher shop served as the town hall from then until 1977, when the building became home to the DuPont Museum. Plant workers continued to make up the majority of the town residents until the plant closed in 1976. Weyerhaeuser bought the plant after it closed and demolished it, but the original village was left intact, and greenbelts were set up around the village area to protect it from further development. The village was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 10, 1987. [2]

Significance

The district includes 119 buildings over its 43 acres (17 ha), of which 80 are considered contributing members of the historic district. It contains the town's only surviving structures from the 1909-1976 DuPont dynamite plant era. The district provides a well-preserved example of one of the many company towns that were built across rural Pierce County during the early 20th century when local economic activity was expanding in various industries. The 1987 National Register of Historic Places nomination form notes that the DuPont Village is the only one of those company towns that "remains intact as a complete entity." [2]

Related Research Articles

DuPont, Washington City in Washington, United States

DuPont is a city in Pierce County, Washington, United States. The population was 8,199 at the 2010 census. The city was originally a company town and gets its name from the DuPont chemical company, which operated an explosives manufacturing plant in the area from 1909 to 1975.

Hagley Museum and Library Nonprofit museum and library in Wilmington, Delaware

The Hagley Museum and Library is a nonprofit educational institution in Wilmington, Delaware. Covering more than 235 acres (0.95 km²) along the banks of the Brandywine Creek, the museum and grounds include the first du Pont family home and garden in the United States, the powder yards, and a 19th-century machine shop. On the hillside below the mansion lies a Renaissance-revival garden, with terraces and statuary, created in the 1920s by Louise Evalina du Pont Crowninshield (1877–1958).

Brandywine Creek (Christina River tributary) creek in southeastern Pennsylvania and Delaware, United States

Brandywine Creek is a tributary of the Christina River in southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware in the United States. The Lower Brandywine is 20.4 miles (32.8 km) long and is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River with several tributary streams. The East Branch and West Branch of the creek originate within 2 miles (3 km) of each other on the slopes of Welsh Mountain in Honey Brook Township, Pennsylvania, about 20 miles (32 km) northwest of their confluence.

du Pont family Wealthy American family

The Du Pont family is a prominent American family descended from Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739–1817). The du Pont family has been one of the richest families in the United States since the mid-19th century, when it founded its fortune in the gunpowder business. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it expanded its wealth through the chemical industry and the automotive industry, with substantial interests in the DuPont company, General Motors, and various other corporations.

Naval Weapons Station Yorktown is a United States Navy base in York County, James City County, and Newport News in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia. It provided a weapons and ammunition storage and loading facility for ships of the United States Atlantic Fleet, and more recently, for those from the Fleet Forces Command.

Fort Nisqually United States historic place

Fort Nisqually was an important fur trading and farming post of the Hudson's Bay Company in the Puget Sound area, part of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department. It was located in what is now DuPont, Washington. Today it is a living history museum located in Tacoma, Washington, USA, within the boundaries of Point Defiance Park. The Fort Nisqually Granary, moved along with the Factor's House from the original site of the second fort to this park, is a U.S. National Historic Landmark. Built in 1843, the granary is the oldest building in Washington state and one of the only surviving examples of a Hudson's Bay Company "post on sill" structure. The Factor's House and the granary are the only surviving Hudson's Bay Company buildings in the United States.

Penniman was an unincorporated town in northwestern York County, Virginia, on the south bank of the York River six miles (9.7 km) northeast of Williamsburg. This was on the Virginia Peninsula and near the Hampton Roads region of southeastern Virginia in the United States.

Centerville, Delaware Unincorporated community in Delaware, United States

Centerville is an unincorporated community in New Castle County, Delaware, United States. Centerville is now known primarily for being the location of Du Pont family estates, as well as several other wealthy business families from nearby Wilmington, and the home of Governor Jack Markell.

Brandywine Creek State Park

Brandywine Creek State Park is a state park, located 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Wilmington, Delaware along the Brandywine Creek. Open year-round, it is 933 acres (378 ha) in area and much of the park was part of a Du Pont family estate and dairy farm before becoming a state park in 1965. It contains the first two nature preserves in Delaware. These nature preserves are Tulip Tree Woods and Freshwater Marsh. Flint Woods is a satellite area of the park and has become the park's third nature preserve. Flint Woods is home to species of rare song birds and an old-growth forest. The park's forests are part of the Northeastern coastal forests ecoregion.

History of Olympia, Washington

The history of Olympia, Washington, includes long-term habitation by Native Americans, charting by a famous English explorer, settlement of the town in the 1840s, the controversial siting of a state college in the 1960s and the ongoing development of arts and culture from a variety of influences.

Jacob Broom House United States historic place

The Jacob Broom House, also known historically as Hagley, is a historic house on Christchurch Road near Montchanin, Delaware. It was built in 1795 by Jacob Broom, one of the Delaware signers of the United States Constitution. The house was purchased in 1802 by Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, progenitor of the prominent Du Pont family and founder of the DuPont chemical concern, who established the Eleutherian Mills below the house on the banks of Brandywine Creek. The house, which remains in the hands of Du Pont descendants, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974, for its association with Broom.

Bellevue State Park (Delaware) Delaware state park

Bellevue State Park is a 328-acre (133 ha) Delaware state park in the suburbs of Wilmington in New Castle County, Delaware in the United States. The park is named for Bellevue Hall, the former mansion of William du Pont Jr. Many of the facilities at the park were built by du Pont. Bellevue State Park overlooks the Delaware River and is open for year-round recreation, daily, from 8 a.m. until sunset. The Mount Pleasant Methodist Episcopal Church and Parsonage is located in Bellevue State Park; it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

Eleutherian Mills United States historic place

From 1802 to 1921, Eleutherian Mills was a gunpowder mill site used for the manufacture of explosives by the Du Pont family business, which was founded by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. The name also refers to the house on the hill above the mills, which was the first Du Pont family home in America. In 1952, the site became an outdoor museum, and the Hagley Museum and Library was founded.

Weyerhaeuser Real Estate Company (WRECO) is a United States based home building and real-estate development company. WRECO was formed in 1969 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser Company and is based in Federal Way, Washington.

St. Josephs on the Brandywine United States historic place

St. Joseph's on the Brandywine is a historic Roman Catholic church complex and national historic district located at 10 Barley Mill Road in Greenville, New Castle County, Delaware. The district encompasses four contributing buildings and one contributing site. The original church was built in 1841 by the duPont family for Irish and Italian Catholic workers at the duPont works. Additions were made in 1848, 1878, 1941 and 1950, and the present form displays very little of the original church structure. It is a stuccoed stone structure, painted yellow, with the pedimented gable of the facade pierced by the church's steeple. The other buildings consist of a rectory, convent, and school.

DuPont Museum

The DuPont Museum is a historical museum in DuPont, Washington. It is located in the DuPont Village Historic District. The museum contains exhibits and artifacts relating to the city's history, including both when it was the locale of the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Nisqually as well as when it was a company town for the DuPont dynamite plant.

Brandywine Manufacturers Sunday School United States historic place

Brandywine Manufacturers Sunday School, also known as Sunday School and Hagley Office, is a historic Sunday school building located near Wilmington, New Castle County, Delaware. It was built in 1817, and is a one-story, rectangular stone building. It measures 31 feet by 65 feet and features an Ionic order columned portico and school bell tower. Also on the property is a contributing spring house. It was built for workers, old and young, to learn the basics of reading, writing, and "ciphering," and remained in use as a school until 1851. From 1902 to 1921, it was the Hagley Yard office of the E. I. du Pont de Nemours Company. It was then converted to a private dwelling.

Brecks Mill Area United States historic place

Breck's Mill Area, also known as Breck's Mill Area-Henry Clay Village Historic District, is a national historic district located along Brandywine Creek at Wilmington, New Castle County, Delaware. It encompasses 56 contributing buildings, five contributing sites, and three contributing structures. The district encompasses The Mill, The Workers' houses, and The Mill Owner's Home.

References

  1. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. November 2, 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Caroline Gallacci; Leonard Garfield (May 1987). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: DuPont Village Historic District". National Park Service . Retrieved September 16, 2019. With accompanying 147 photos
  3. ↑ "Fort Nisqually". DuPont Historical Museum. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
  4. 1 2 Crooks, Drew. "Historic Village". DuPont Historical Museum. Retrieved September 21, 2019.
  5. ↑ "DuPont Plant History". DuPont Historical Museum. Retrieved September 21, 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.