04/24/2026
It’s Flashback Friday, and we’re looking back at past park memories this year in celebration of Delaware State Park’s 75th Anniversary as well as the 250th Anniversary of our nation. This week we are flashing back with this canoeing classic of the Brandywine Canoe Club! Taken in 1942, these pictures show two families of Brandywine Canoe Club members getting ready to embark on a canoe trip and picnic to celebrate a holiday weekend. According to an interview with one of the people pictured in the photo, the group was headed a mile upstream to a cabin along the big rocks for their holiday picnic. The men would canoe their way there, while the women drove the supplies over in their car.
By 1942, the Brandywine Canoe Club was already well established after being founded in 1907 by a group of local canoeing enthusiasts. They had built a one-story structure for housing canoes, the canoe ramp down the Brandywine Creek, and the steps we can see in the pictures. That canoe shed itself could accommodate 45 canoes, and was used from the group's founding until they ceased operations in the mid-1970s. After that point, the shed was left to fall into ruin. During their time, the group was known to hold picnics, social gatherings, and joint ventures with other local canoe clubs along the Christiana and Delaware rivers. Commonly, canoers would paddle north from the canoe shed to Thompson’s Bridge, Chadds Ford, or even Lenape Park.
From 1954 until 1968, the Brandywine Canoe Club also co-sponsored the Brandywine Canoe Slalom in Wilmington. This whitewater canoe race was not for the faint of heart as it pitted contestants against the fast currents of the Brandywine. Tasked with completing the course in the shortest time, different groups of canoe and kayak paddlers competed on routes that required them to handle their crafts forward, backwards, and sideways against the currents.
Have any memories of the Brandywine Canoe Club or one of their events? Please feel free to share them in the comments below!
