Growing up in the 1960s, you did not refer to Delaware County as “Delco.” It was an abbreviation, useful for newspaper headlines and occasionally in the name of local sports teams and businesses. But in the last 20 years, the term has gained acceptance as a shorthand for the region, just like Philadelphia is now “Philly.”
This increase was perhaps fueled by social media, and pop culture references, particularly the TV series ‘Mare of Easttown,’ where “Delco” became synonymous with the county’s unique accent, culture and identity as a series of tight-knit communities with working-class roots. It’s a term now used with pride, and occasionally with back-handed disdain: “That’s so Delco!”
What is Delco today? It is not the Delco of ‘Mare of Easttown’ – differing from Radnor in the north, to Marcus Hook in the south, Upper Darby and the river towns to the east and Chadds Ford to the west.
In the beginning, Delaware County did not exist. It was created in 1789 when the easternmost townships of Chester County divorced the western townships, and created a new county, with the City of Chester as its county seat. Chester was too far away from so many places in the original Chester County, and also too far to travel for county business in the 19th century, and so in 1850 a new county seat was chosen: Media.
Today, Delaware County has 49 separate “municipalities” consisting of 1 city (Chester), 21 townships, and 27
boroughs, along with 11 census-designated places (as designated by the U.S. Census Bureau) and 12 unincorporated communities. The county contains 191 square miles, the third smallest county in the state by area. The population of the county in the first census taken in 1790 was 9,469. One hundred years later in 1890, it was 74,683. It continued its double-digit growth rate, with the largest jump occurring between 1920 and 1930, when the population increased by 61.9%. In 2020, the population was 576,830, making it the 5th most populous among the 67 Pennsylvania counties.
Most of the townships were created when William Penn was planning his colony. Today, the largest township is Upper Darby, with 85,681 people in 2020. The smallest is Lower Chichester, with just 3425 people. Newtown comes in 11th of the 21 townships with 15,002 residents.
I am hard-pressed to identify a unifying theme in such disparate communities, other than today we are all “Delco.”
For more history on Newtown Square, Delaware County, and membership information, please visit our website at: https://nshistory.org/