Alapocas Run Park

Alapocas Run Park. . , An oasis within the city , Welcome to Alapocas Run Park, a part of Wilmington State Parks. The park began in 1910 when William Poole Bancroft donated 123 acres along the banks of Brandywine River to the city of Wilmington. In the years since, the park has grown to over 145 acres. The woods offer a retreat from the nearby city where visitors may enjoy hiking and bicycling. There is a wealth of native plants and wildlife, and a type of rock formation not exposed anywhere else in Delaware., The granite quarry , As you walk this trail, you are traveling through the remains of a granite quarry which was operated by Philip P. Tyre during the 1870s. Operations continued under different owners through at least 1938. Stone taken from here was used for such projects as Wilmington's street curbs, the walls and paths on south Park Drive and in Brandywine Park. Rockford Tower was also built from this stone, as was the nearby Mount Salem United Methodist Church., How to move a mountain , This cable system was built in the late 1880s to move the granite quarried opposite the Bancroft Mills across the Brandywine River. Traveling 180 feet above the river, the stone arrived on the other side where it was loaded onto freight cars on a branch line of the Pennsylvania Railroad.