Our own national park deserve a better name

To the Times: Until March 2013, Delaware was the only state to not have a unit of the National Park Service. President Obama remedied that by using the Antiquities Act to create “The First State National Monument” consisting of nine separate entities at various sites in Delaware, stretching from the Ryves Holt House in Lewes to Beaver Valley on the Pennsylvania border. In 2014, it was redesignated a “national park,” becoming the First State National Historical Park.

Of the 417 units of the National Park Service, all but a handful have names evocative of their natural characteristics, which is not to say that a place like Yosemite or Smoky Mountain National Park would not still be beautiful by any other name. But would Yosemite still sound like a wondrous destination if it were called Central California National Park? The name Yosemite has an exotic quality about it, and its four syllables flow easily off the tongue as do the names of Yellowstone, Acadia, Denali, Everglades, Glacier, Sequoia, and Redwood. These national parks impart a sense of place, mystery, and adventure.

Can we say the same for Delaware and Delaware County’s only national park? The “First State National Historical Park” is a ten-syllable word salad that rolls off the tongue like construction adhesive. Aside from being an unwieldly name which is confusing, difficult to remember, and frequently misnamed in print, it hardly summons the kinds of associations that other parks’ names do. Instead of calling to mind Delaware’s Swedish beginnings, its importance in Colonial history, and its connection to the Brandywine Valley and historic Chadds Ford, its first three words make it sound like a bank. The second and third words create an oxymoronic juxtaposition: is it a state park or a national park? The first word is highly ambiguous: Is it the “first” of its kind or is it “first state” as in “Delaware,” the first to ratify the Constitution? Is it an “historical park” or an “historic park?” It appears in news pieces in both forms.

The Brandywine River flows through the Beaver Valley unit of the park, but the First State National Historical Park does not evoke the beauty and natural features of the Brandywine Valley in the way that Yosemite, Yellowstone, or Redwood National Park summon images of mountains, geysers, or mammoth trees. A more apt name would conjure the Battle of the Brandywine, the rich history that wends like the Brandywine from colonial days to the present, the Du Pont and Wyeth families, and the various institutions like Longwood Gardens, the Brandywine River Museum, Winterthur, and Nemours. There is nothing about the current national park name to tie it to these places let alone locate it in the region. Renaming it would connect it to our area’s rich history as well as the scenic beauty of the Brandywine Valley.

That’s why the park should be split into two different NPS units, separating the strictly historic structures throughout Delaware from the Beaver Valley portion in New Castle County and Chadds Ford Township. The eight historical sites could retain the current park name while the land in Beaver Valley could be redesignated Brandywine National Park. This name would much more aptly describe Delaware and Pennsylvania’s shared natural and historic resource: the Brandywine River Valley.

Changing park names is not unheard of. There is a recent precedent in the renaming of “Mount McKinley” to “Denali,” a much more appropriate and historically accurate designation. The cost of this would be minimal, too. Signs, stationery, websites, etc, would need to be changed, of course, but no new land would need to be acquired. The current superb superintendent of the FSNHP might continue to manage both units in the event of a split, but managing nine separate sites throughout Delaware is already too much for one person. The more practical solution would be to have separate superintendents for the FSNHP and Brandywine National Park.

National Park Service sites are economic engines for local and regional economies. The Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Rocky Moutain and a few others attract the most visitors and generate hundreds of millions in sales taxes, park fees, lodging, food, entertainment, outdoor equipment sales, and much more. The other 400-odd National Park Service units compete for the remaining park visits and so get a smaller slice of the pie for their economies. We need every edge to make our Brandywine Valley more attractive to visitors in order to infuse our regional economy with millions in new revenue. Renaming the FSNHP as Brandywine National Park would make a lot of sense with this goal in mind. The mere act of splitting and renaming the Beaver Valley unit of the park would be national news and it would be connected by name to the already known cultural gems of the Brandywine Valley. It would also mean more visitors for them and a way to tap into more potential donors to sustain their missions.

Adding land to the Beaver Valley portion of the park would also add to its stature. To wit, the 270 acres that Mount Cuba, The Conservation Fund, and the Brandywine Conservancy just saved in Concord Township will most likely be added to the national park. Then there’s the 350+ acres in Delaware that William Bancroft’s Woodlawn Trustees still own which could be purchased and rescued from Woodlawn and then added to the park as well. Just as William Du Pont’s “Bellevue” became a Delaware State Park, perhaps Irénée Du Pont’s “Granogue” might also one day add even more grandeur to the Brandywine National Park.

Of course, this would have to be something Congress passes and then signed by a president who just ordered the “review” and possible repeal of 27 national monuments. Our federal government has become a bastion of anti-environmental, anti-park contempt and would just as soon disband our national parks, monuments, and wildlife refuges and permit all manner of dangerous and polluting extractive activities. So changing the park name would have to wait until leaders like Clem Miller, William Ruckelshaus, Teddy Roosevelt, and Jack Kennedy once again inhabit our government.