Qualla: Kent County, Delaware

Kent County, Delaware: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit formulanone from Huntsville, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. Neil Armstrong's spacesuit was made in Frederica, Kent County, Delaware. ILC Dover - a textile company that started in 1947 making wire harnesses for B-58 bombers - won the Apollo lunar EVA spacesuit contract in 1965 after a bake-off against three other companies. The A7L suits the company built were sewn by hand from twenty-one layers of fabric, including five layers of Teflon-coated fiberglass to protect against micrometeorites. The seamstresses who stitched them had previously made underwear and brassieres. Their work walked on the Moon on July 20, 1969. ILC Dover is still in business. The space suits worn by every Space Shuttle astronaut who performed an EVA, every ISS spacewalker, and every Artemis-era lunar astronaut trace back to the small factory in Frederica.

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Image: formulanone from Huntsville, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kent County, Delaware: St. Jones County and the Hundreds

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 2.5. Kent County was originally chartered by the Duke of York on June 21, 1680, as St. Jones County - carved out of New Amstel and Hoarkill counties. The St. Jones River, which runs through Dover, gave the original name. On August 24, 1682, the Duke transferred the county to William P...

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Image: Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant) | CC BY-SA 2.5

Kent County, Delaware: Small Grains and Free People

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 2.5. Kent County's economy in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was based on small grain farms - wheat, corn, oats. The agriculture was less labor-intensive than the tobacco plantations of southern Delaware and Maryland's Eastern Shore. Kent County farmers needed fewer ens...

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Image: Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant) | CC BY-SA 2.5

Kent County, Delaware: ILC Dover and the Moon

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ, M.D., CC BY-SA 4.0. The A7L spacesuit ILC Dover built for Apollo had to accomplish what no other garment in human history had attempted - keeping a human alive on the surface of the Moon. The suit had to provide pressure, oxygen, thermal protection, micrometeorite defense, and full body mobility, al...

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Image: JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ, M.D. | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kent County, Delaware: Bombay Hook and the Snow Geese

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0. Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge covers 16,000 acres of tidal marsh, freshwater impoundments, and upland forest along the Delaware Bay in northeastern Kent County. The refuge was established in 1937 to protect waterfowl habitat on the Atlantic Flyway. Every fall, tens of thou...

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Image: Famartin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kent County, Delaware: The Capital County

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bev Sykes from Davis, CA, USA, CC BY 2.0. Kent County is Delaware's least populous county - 181,851 residents in the 2020 census - but it is the most populous county in the United States to hold that distinction within its state. Dover, the county seat and the state capital, contains the Delaware Legislative Hall, the De...

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Image: Bev Sykes from Davis, CA, USA | CC BY 2.0