Southwood

The Southwood area in 1881

It was a while back that I stopped thinking about these posts as "reports" and began approaching them more as I see them -- as stories. I try to tell the story of a given person, place, thing, or event, at least to the extent that I understand it. Granted, some of those stories are more intricate and, frankly, interesting than others, but all are worth telling. For example, we recently delved into some of the people, places, and history of the area surrounding the Wilmington & Western's Greenbank Station.

But there were of course other stations with other areas around them, and of all those other stations, one of them was Southwood. And though there was never any sort of defined community around the Southwood Station, there are some interesting aspects to the area. There are also some things that I did not know until I was asked about the area (thanks, Erik!).

First, though, we'll start with where Southwood is, since it's completely understandable that you might not be familiar with it. The area we're referring to as Southwood sits along Limestone Road immediately south of the DE/PA state line, west of Hockessin. Also in the vicinity is the intersection of Limestone Road and Southwood Road, which runs west from Valley Road. The name "Southwood Road", however, seems to be a 20th Century moniker (at least for its eastern end, where it was previously known as Sunset Avenue, among other names).