B & O PAVILION DIG
n 1891, an agreement by Richard Crook was made with the B&O Railroad to allow them to erect a station in the park. This photo is from a George Wolf postcard of the era and is the only photo we have. Note on the postcard it is called a pavilion so we have kept that designation. The Wilmington & Western Railroad calls it a station.
This B&O track map from 1917 was found in the U.S. Archives and shows the location of the station (B&O Pavilion) along the B&O right-of-way. The stream on the right is Hyde Run. What makes this map interesting is the current Wilmington & Western Railroad has a 1918 track map and the station was erased. We assume the station (pavilion) was taken down in 1917. The trolley tracks shown are those of the Peoples Railway which was sold to the Wilmington & Phila. Traction Co.
This is typical of what we found for the footers. The 18” x 18” x 6” concrete footer cap was cast off site. We could tell this was made by the B&O because there are coal particles as large as 1 inch in size in the concrete. A coal pile must have been next to the sand pile where they did the concrete casting. In the photo you can also see mortar with coal dust between the local rock columns that supported the concrete cap.
This May 1, 2011, photo shows the sign and corner posts FOBS put in place to mark where the building was located. The current Wilmington & Western Railroad narration points out the posts and signs during their trips up the Red Clay Valley.
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Click any photo above to view a larger version.
FOBS conducted an archaeology dig to find and mark the location of the B&O Pavilion (station) from April 2010 to April 2011. The photos show some of the more interesting finds and data.
B&O Pavilion Archaeology Site Map:
Click on photo below to view a larger version.
B&O Pavilion Footer Construction:
Click on photo below to view a larger version.
This CAD drawing shows the FOBS archaeology site map. We found the building to be 50 feet by 100 feet in size and was used by both the B&O and the People’s Railway trolley line. We found 17 footers and a number of artifacts. The more interesting ones are in the Red Clay Valley Visitor Center & Museum at the Wilmington & Western Railroad's Greenbank Station.
This CAD drawing shows a cross section of a typical footer.
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Friends of Brandywine Springs
P.O. Box 5323
Wilmington, DE 19808-0323
