Forgotten Milepost: Clemente’s Travel Center
(aka “State Road, Delaware”)
One piece of transportation history that seems to be in the process of being completely forgotten is the Clemente Travel Center, also known as “State Road” in New Castle, Delaware.
Right in the center of the mid-Atlantic roadway corridor, nestled between the New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore/Washington metropolises and Atlantic City and the coastline (and on the outskirts of Wilmington, DE), this roadway stop billed itself as the place
“WHERE THE NATION MEETS AND EATS“.
It was the major rest stop and transfer point for the interstate bus system (Greyhound and Trailways). Even the express buses to the deep South or cross country (such as the ones we used to take, whose first city after leaving New York was Richmond) pulled off of the I-95/295, and headed 3 miles down US13, (like they were going down the Delmarva/Eastern Shore Line), to make the stop, and then had to cut across the smaller DE Rte. 273 (Frenchtown/Christiana Rd.) 4 miles to pick up the I-95 again in Christiana.
The stop consisted of a really large cafeteria in the front (very big dining area), and a gift shop, as well as the ticket counters for the buses. And of course, restrooms.
In the back was the door to the long bus port running straight ahead, with the bus bays on both sides.
Behind all of this was parking space, and behind that a marshy area with a couple small dead end roads, a pond, a freight track, a park, and a creek eventually leading to the nearby Delaware River. A nice sunshiney place in the morning, and the gateway to the cozy, peaceful looking Eastern Shore.
The food I most remember is the cheesecake, which had a similar creamy texture to NYC’s famously unique Junior’s, though tasted a bit different, and had some crumbs on top.
My first time there was likely in ’75 on the return bus trip from my aunt in central Virginia. I do vaguely remember stopping at a place that looked like it inside. (On the way down, we had met my aunt in the city and she drove us down. First time to the South). I know on my next trip down there, in ’80, the bus stopped there both ways. I had liked it so much on the way down, I looked forward to making this stop on the way back.
Four years later, I chose Virginia’s then largest city, Norfolk, to attend college. When driving, we usually took the US13 all the way, and I suggested Clemente’s as one of the stops, which then we always did.
At first, when coming back home for the holidays or summer, I flew (first time ever). But then, I became ever so curious about the cities I was flying over (and we had passed by without stopping, whether by bus or car). So I began taking the bus; either the 12 hour trip via the western “Peninsula” and mainland (Richmond, Washington, etc), or if going straight, the more direct 9 hour, but non-interstate (little towns and traffic lights) Delmarva peninsula. Both routes came back together at State Road.
I continued making the trips down there, even after leaving college. I likely stopped there on my cross country trip to LA (‘89)
Time began running out for the Center, when the Baltimore Travel Plaza opened, which was closer to the I-95, being right near an exit in eastern Baltimore. Service then began moving into the new stop, which was in addition to Baltimore Downtown (the former Trailways station, with the Greyhound station closed after the late 80’s merger).
The June, 1991 Russell Guide (which I managed to get), still listed some mainline runs, and all the Eastern Shore runs at State Road. Either that year’s trip (to both my aunt, and Norfolk; a huge triangle), or another trip I made that year, to explore Wilmington and the Christiana Mall, was my last time there. My next two trips; my first Florida trip, that summer (Jacksonville, which in many ways is a sister city to Norfolk), and the second one, a year later (Key West); the super expresses all stopped at the new Travel Plaza.
By the fall ’92 Carolina Trailways schedule, State Road was reduced to a flag stop, and the new crossroads between the Eastern Shore and the corridor was nearby Wilmington (which is kind of out of the way for the buses going straight to New York, as it is 3 miles past the turnoff to I-295, the mainline highway heading to the Delaware Memorial Bridge to New Jersey). Previously, Wilmington was a local stop on the route to Philadelphia.
All mainline service used Baltimore Travel Plaza (and/or Downtown) instead.
Eventually, the super expresses from New York to Richmond and beyond no longer stopped even there, but instead began using the Maryland House, which was a rest stop in the median of the highway (i.e. between northbound and southbound roadways), near Aberdeen, between Baltimore and the Susquehanna. Of course, this was faster and more convenient than even the Travel Plaza since it was right in the highway.
On my next Norfolk trip, in late ’92, Clemente’s was but a dark, shuttered hull we zipped by between Odessa and Wilmington. (The meal stop was now at a lesser fast food chain further to the south, somewhere).
I would be married less than a year later, and basically settle down from my long solo interstate trips.
Forward over a decade later (2005), the MC12 model coaches that were just coming out when I last rode are now the dwindling old fleet, and carrying the last of the distinctly sounded Detroit Diesel two-stroke engines that provided power for more than half a century, as federally mandated four-stroke engines were taking over. (Buses would never be the same again, and I don’t even miss them as much). The combined Greyhound/Peter Pan operation [the latter having expanded, as a limited “Trailways” revival] had completely pulled out of the Baltimore Travel Plaza, but several “China buses” stopped there instead. (Even later, a new “Baltimore downtown” eventually opened closer to the highways, and the “Chesapeake House” rest stop further up the road, near North East, between the Susquehanna and the DE state line, was used when Maryland House was being rebuilt).
State Road was long gone from all schedules, and many stops and routes, such as the old US40 local from Philly to Washington, the US17 (“Tidewater Trail”) shortcut between Norfolk and Washington, and several Eastern Shore stops, and even the US60 route west of Richmond providing the sole service to my aunt’s area, were also gone.
So being well into the age of the internet, I happen to find out that a huge mall had been built on what was blocks of flat parking space in the core of downtown Norfolk. (It was actually there for about 9 years already; I just had never looked up anything about Norfolk online until then). Plus, everything else that had been built up since my single days, with construction ongoing everywhere. (It was pretty desolated and depressing when I was in college).
So then, I finally got back on the road, down to Norfolk again.
The “traditon” had become to go down via the mainland (since I used to stop off at and explore the other cities along the way), and return via the direct route on the 13.
I was surprised with a new expressway in the Delaware portion of the route (DE Rte. 1; Korean War Veterans Memorial Hwy and the new cable-stayed William Roth Jr. Bridge) bypassing a chunk of the 13, including the steep St. George bridge over the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal passing way above the sleepy colonial looking town it is named after. The two highways do run right next to each other in places, though. However, instead of taking the new road to its interchange with I-95 at Christiana (as I feared it would naturally do), we got off and back onto the 13 (Dupont Highway) at the town of Bear for that last highly commercial stretch through New Castle and Wilmington Manor. (Greyhound I believe does this to avoid a toll at the Christiana interchange). Trying to remember exactly where the Center was, I looked out for it, and could recognize it, next to the “colonial house” looking office building (now a data school or something), and I could see it by now appeared to be turned into a furniture store.
Eventually, with the wonders of Google Maps, including Street View, I could see that it was in fact a little shopping strip, anchored by the Urban Furniture Outlet in front, and Woodcraft of Wilmington in the back.
The furniture store is apparently the old building with a new façade, and the bus port enclosed into the other stores, with pretty much the same (though newly paved) roadway around the facility the buses used to use. When the buses used it, the north side was inbound, and the south side was outbound. Now, a sidewalk to the stores and grassy strips are where the south bays were, and the north side appears to be the loading area and employee parking in the back of the stores, and the former bus entrance leading to this is now gated off. Also appearing the same, is the big parking lot behind the whole complex.
Looking it up online, I could not find ANYTHING about “Clemente’s Travel Center” or even “State Road”. Even searching the slogan “Where the Nation Meets and Eats”, only turned up an old New York Magazine (Mar 3, 1969 “Tracking the Action to Bowie”) on Google Books, briefly mentioning it in passing! On the physical site (at least from the photos), there is no sign that it was ever there.
I find that the name of the plaza is The Shoppes of New Castle
http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/16443798/166-S-DuPont-Highway-New-Castle-DE/ (Note: The name no longer appears on this page).
You would think some place would mention it was the former Clemente travel center. Would have been nice if it was at least called “The Shoppes at State Road”.
History of “State Road” (the area and the travel center)
On the original blog post, several locals commented, including a grandson of one of the original owners (who now has a barbershop in the area), and a great nephew of another, and someone whose mother worked there. Plus a few others who remembered it from long ago. Longtime area resident Eb Dunlap contributed several photos, postcards, and even a drawing of the inside layout, and several of us discussed various aspects of the history of the area! Now, for this version of the article, another grandchild, Lori, has commented, filling some points, with her father!
1951 was the year this area changed greatly, as the first span of the Delaware Memorial Bridge opened. (This was also the year the old Red Star Motor Coaches line that was the Eastern Shore’s main carrier was bought out by Carolina Trailways. A 1948 Red Star map http://chicagorailfan.com/greycccc.html shows no stops between Wilmington and Odessa).
So this same year was when the original owners of the travel center, brothers Albert, Harry and Antimo (Andy) Clemente opened the location. (Two of Harry’s children; Alfred, who was a manager there and father of Lori, and Anna, the aunt-in-law of one of the other commenters, are still alive). Natives of south Jersey, they originally had a restaurant and bar in Penns Grove, on the other side of the river. Before the Delaware Memorial Bridge was completed that August, Greyhound approached them about using the location as a stop. (There was a ferry crossing right where the bridge would be built, and this was likely what the buses stopping at Penns Grove were using to get across). Once it opened, they no longer needed that location, and the brothers asked the company about where the new rest stop would be.
So both companies decided on the nearby New Castle location, near the highway junction known as “the crossroads of the nation” (next paragraph), and which for Greyhound was also halfway between New York and Washington, in an age when buses did not have restrooms. (Restrooms began to become standardized with the Scenicruisers in the middle of the decade). The brothers financed the property with their own resources and signed an expanded contract spanning 15 years, for all Greyhound buses to stop there. Afterwards, the practice continued unofficially, with most buses still stopping there, except some shorter expresses. At some point, Trailways approached the brothers to use the facility as well. (It then became the hub for all the major service. Other charter buses used it as well, as can be seen in the photo, below). In 1982, they leased the terminal to Greyhound, which lasted 10 years, until the end, when Greyhound determined the demand for ridership was not high enough to stop at both Clemente’s and nearby Wilmington (which is a full fledged city and includes a major transportation hub with the North East Corridor and SEPTA. Meanwhile, being the first stop on many of the deep south expresses was Richmond and not DC, the Maryland rest stops were now the halfway point).
As for the name of the area, from what was gathered in my earlier research and input on the other blog, “State Road” likely was originally an actual horse wagon road (used by Caesar Rodney when he rode from Dover to Philadelphia to sign the Declaration of Independence in 1775), which was replaced by the Dupont Highway about 100 years ago, with a remaining 1800ft stretch (branching off opposite the Galloway Court housing complex) becoming “Old State Road”, which is a single “back road” lane passing through a rural strip behind the businesses on the west side of the Dupont Hwy. It crossed the railroad (a still existing freight line, which had passenger service to Cape Charles and over the ferry to Norfolk until the 50’s, and shortened to Delmar, DE until ‘65), which had a “State Road” station there (in an 1890’s RR map), in a little corner with a post office, and a junction with “Elkton Road”, which was the predecessor to US40, the “Pulaski Hwy”.
This was apparently the original locality named “State Road”, likely framed around the station as a sort of hub with the two roads. This obviously became the [equestrian] “crossroads” between the coastal route, and the inland route to DC and beyond. The footprints of the two buildings are apparently still visible in the grounds behind the current Pockets restaurant & tavern! This little town center was likely obliterated when the two roads and the railroad were upgraded and expanded, with the grade crossing eliminated so the old road just ends there and right turns back to an intersection with Dupont, and the junction between the two new highways moved about 1000 feet north of there, with a long standing Exxon station (reportedly from the very beginning in the 20's!) in the middle of the very fork. THIS is what the place name “State Road” refers to now! It then naturally resumed the role of “Crossroads of the Nation”, until the new Interstate system began drawing the traffic away in 1963.
(Just before the merger, Dupont dips below the freight track, which let us know we were almost at Clemente’s. The southbound Dupont and northbound Pulaski cross each other at grade and then branch or merge with their counterparts on the other road).
Clemente’s lied nearly a half mile to the north (at 166 Dupont Hwy), and took the place name as a bus destination, though the area is really addressed to New Castle, and closer to the community of Midvale, just across the road.
The two then still living brothers Andy and Harry closed it in November 1992, despite having tried to dress up the cafeteria to draw more Greyhound service, which never came. (Delaware News-Journal, 11–8–92 https://www.newspapers.com/image/158871235 [subscription to site required]. So I had just missed it when I passed by the following month!)
So it was there just over 40 years! “Since it’s 1950’s glory days” it was frequented by “Busloads of sailors, bound for Virginia shipyards. High school students from New York on senior-year jaunts south. [And a certain college dropout as well, as stated!] Families headed to Florida vacations. Big bands barnstorming the East Coast.” A commenter on the original article mentions in the 70’s staying at a motel next door. (Don’t remember one still being there in the 80’s, though). This of course would also make it convenent as a major stop for these travelers. Andy reported that in the 50’s, jazz bandleader Lionel Hampton loved the food and said “Man, this is my place!”
Entry to the “Eastern Shore”
This was the northern gateway to the 200 mile long Delmarva peninsula or “Eastern Shore” (of Chesapeake Bay). The southern gateway is the long Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (isolating the VA portion from the rest of the state. The western gateway is the “Chesapeake Bay Bridge” [no tunnel] from Annapolis and the DC area).
One of the first “local” fixtures you see coming from the bridge-tunnel is the Cape Center, a store built to look like a red barn. Soon, you encounter the town of Cheriton, which along with Exmore, Onley and Accomac, have the main US13-Lankford Highway bypass the town, while a 13BR cuts through the town as the main street, with the rows of quaint businesses, many of them antique shops. (The buses used to stop in the towns, but now have either cut out the stops, or moved the agencies to along the main highway).
Then, you have the tiny village of Painter, with its general store (with a front porch) and main street next to the railroad track right beside the Lankford highway. (The track is between the two roads. Though the store, which was also the bus agency, appears to have been vacant for about 30 years now, since the recession back then apparently hit the area hard). The track then runs next to the highway through several towns, before veering off next to another road, to the Eastern Shore Railroad Museum at a restored old station in a similar town center at Parksley. (Never saw any of that, since I’ve never been down any of the other roads, save the one leading to Cape Charles).
Further up, Pocomoke City and Princess Anne, MD are somewhat bigger versions of these towns, (and you see the track again for a stretch from between those towns, into Salisbury). Dover is also pretty colonial looking, and four other towns in Delaware (Greenwood, Harrington, Smyrna and Odessa) have the US13 split into two one way streets a block apart in town, with businesses or houses in between. (St. Georges used to be like that as well, until the high St. Georges bridge over the canal to the west replaced the old lift bridge to the town’s Main and Broad St. in 1942. The canal — a shortcut connecting the Delaware River to the Chesapeake Bay, was cut through, replacing an earlier river, in 1829).
The whole stretch just makes me think ♪“Grrreeeen Acres is the place to be…”♫
When passing over the high canal bridges at night, the Delaware City Refinery sits glistening by itself off in the distance on the flat grounded area next to the Delaware river, and I always thought of it as “Emerald City”!
So Clemente’s was the end of this run, before heading onto the big highways to the big cities to the north. (There is also a “Delaware House Travel Plaza” in the I-95 median near the MD border, and I’m surprised this didn’t become the replacement for Clemente’s on the buses. [Edit; as of 2022, it is now the rest stop for a NY-Miami super-express, with one daily run in each direction stopping there. The other expresses generally use Washington, DC]. I had wished they would add another one on the median of the 295 right as it passes over the east side of 13, so that it would again be the crossroads of the two corridors and convenient to both highways, but that would have been a tight squeeze).
Originally posted on Eripedia