Interconnecting stories and experiences

UD students envision a new future for Cooch’s Bridge Historic Site

Students from the University of Delaware learning what it takes to develop plans for a historic site will be sharing their thoughts with the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs (HCA), its supporters and its newsletter subscribers through a series of articles the students penned about their time spent proposing ideas for the Cooch’s Bridge Historic Site near Newark.

The student authors are from a class taught in Spring 2024 by HCA’s Historic Sites Team Manager Daniel Citron and Engagement and Collections Manager Meg Hutchins.

Cooch sign
Cooch sign
Cooch sign

Interconnection needed at Cooch’s Bridge Historic Site’s homestead and surrounding landscape

By Hannah Covel

The vision of this collaborative project is to have creative and appropriate narratives, displays and programs integrated into the past and living histories of the Cooch’s Bridge Historic Site. This project is an exploration and conceptualization of the possibilities in methods to improve the visitor experience and present the site’s history. This historic site has many entangled histories, and it is important that the parties responsible for maintaining the site and its narratives expand the histories’ perspectives outside of the EuroAmerican-centric ideals of the world. The exploration and conceptualization of this project has encouraged group collaboration, which has been essential in creating a cohesive system to propose to the State of Delaware’s Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs (HCA), which owns and oversees the site, and stakeholders for its future development as a publicly accessible landmark of local history.

Aerial view of the Cooch-Dayett mill complex.
Aerial view of the Cooch-Dayett mill complex. Bottom center from left to right: the mill, grain elevator and warehouse.
Aerial view of the Cooch-Dayett mill complex.
Aerial view of the Cooch-Dayett mill complex. Bottom center from left to right: the mill, grain elevator and warehouse.
Aerial view of the Cooch-Dayett mill complex.
Aerial view of the Cooch-Dayett mill complex. Bottom center from left to right: the mill, grain elevator and warehouse.

The group I am working with is focusing on the exhibition of the entire Cooch’s Bridge Historic Site, within which we each are focusing on specific aspects: the Cooch-Dayett Mill, the Cooch home on the Homestead, and I am focusing on the Cooch Homestead’s outbuildings and landscape. Exhibition relies heavily on the interpretations that will be expressed to visitors, exhibited in the physical spaces and platformed to the world through advertising and the internet. As I have been generating my proposals for the Cooch Homestead’s outbuildings and landscapes, I have been considering the interpretive approaches of my peers and how my own approaches can coordinate. 

The homestead’s outbuildings and landscape are only interconnected by grass and some gravel pathways. A sidewalk or paved pathway could be implemented to allow for better navigation and access to the exterior of the home. This suggestion is the backbone of the changes that would greatly improve the visitor experience and the methods of interaction visitors can have with the historic site. With the sidewalk in place, signage can be implemented and used to tell the narrative of the site and to help direct visitors. Programming, props and activities relating to each of the outbuildings and the landscape can all be considered and integrated into the development of the site once the site’s landscape is actually physically accessible to the visitors. 

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