Laura Lee is a board member for the Friends of Fort DuPont and the superintendent of White Clay Creek State Park in Newark.
Twenty years ago, when I worked as a park interpreter at Fort DuPont, I loved exploring the historical buildings. I also remember wondering how many could realistically be saved. There were so many buildings in need of work and no dedicated budget to preserve them. A supervisor once told me that Delaware State Parks could spend its entire statewide housing budget there and might be lucky to stabilize one building in a year.
I never thought we would return Fort DuPont to being an active community. Yet here we are.
The turning point was finding ways to put the buildings back to use, while creating a way to support preservation. The redevelopment plan included new construction, much of it set apart from the historical buildings. Architectural standards helped protect the character of the campus. Some deteriorated 1970s-era concrete buildings were removed, creating room for development that could also support preservation work.
As someone who cares deeply about historical places, I know that compromise can be uncomfortable. I would love to see a complete early 20th-century landscape. But such preservation is expensive, and good intentions alone do not keep a building standing.
Officers Row is the example I return to most often. In the early 2000s, those buildings were among the worst on the site. The hospital had used and reused them, carving them up and making changes over decades. The Historic Preservation Committee worked to make sure stabilization preserved the character of the surviving buildings, while standards guided new construction around them.
Now, families live there again. I still wish we could bring back the fountain.
A historical building has a better chance of surviving when people have a reason to use it.
The chapel offers another example. Dedicated in 1941, it was one of many frame buildings constructed for the military and never meant to last for decades. After the property was turned over to the state, church congregations continued to use the chapel. That use likely contributed to its survival, while other vacant mobilization buildings deteriorated and were eventually removed.
Continued use can be part of what keeps a historical building standing.
I see the change beyond the buildings, too. I see it at church on Sundays and when I wait for a table at a restaurant in Delaware City. More families now live where an active military community once stood. For people who live there now, that history is part of everyday life.
Preserving a building is only one part of the job. The harder question is, what comes next?
It is not enough to rally around an old building and shame people into saving it. Public funding alone cannot restore every historical property we care about. A building requires a future use that answers a real need. In some cases, that use can also generate revenue that supports future preservation work.
Fort DuPont has also shown why architectural standards matter when new development enters a historical setting. New construction does not have to erase the character of an older place, but that does not happen by accident. Tim Slavin, the director of the Fort DuPont Redevelopment and Preservation Corp., has helped keep the historical buildings in focus, as redevelopment has moved forward. His background in preservation has been valuable, as the site has had to make decisions about what is new and what needs to be protected.
There is still work ahead at Fort DuPont. Some historical buildings are waiting for their next uses, and each one will present its own questions about cost and condition. We will also have to decide what can realistically be preserved.
Twenty years ago, I looked at Fort DuPont and wondered how we could possibly save it. Today, when I look at an old building, I ask a different question: What can this place be used for next?
If we can answer that without losing what made the building worth saving in the first place, preservation has a chance to last.
That is what Fort DuPont has taught me.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
