3 Stops during our 3D Dover Delaware Day

Our planned path through the state of Delaware is going to keep the motor home in the bottom third of this tiny state. But that doesn't mean that we can't take a road trip to see more of the state. From our campground at Trap Pond State Park (at the very southern tip of the state) it's only 50 miles to the state capitol in Dover. We have three stops planned for this Dover Delaware Day. The first is at Legislative Hall, where we had a morning tour scheduled.

It's the last day of the legislative session, and there's a crowd inside Legislative Hall. We had to be patient to get this picture of the main decorative stairway without crowds of other people in it.

We saw groups waiting outside the Governor's office. People were holding signs that expressed their opinion for or against the gun bill that was coming up for a vote during this final day of the legislative session.

They don't start that session until 2:00, so our tour guide is hurrying us through our private tour. We popped into both houses of the legislature as assistants were setting out piles of paper for the senators.

The two houses looked very similar, and we think that this is one of the plainest capitol buildings we have toured. It didn't take long to see it all, and we took very few pictures.

This historical district of Dover has two other buildings that we wanted to see. We next walked to the Johnson Victrola Museum, and were surprised that the door was locked. Denisa called them, and they hurried to unlock it for us.

We started looking around at the Victrola machines, and read some of the informational cards with the displays. Denisa liked this one because it reminded her of the Victrola that she used to play with at her grandparents' house when she was a child. We thought that this museum wouldn't take long, as we looked around quickly.

But that's when the museum curator offered to give us a personal tour. This museum just got a whole lot more interesting! He told us the entire story of the Victor Talking Machine, which was manufactured and patented by Eldridge Johnson here in Delaware. This machine transferred the sound from the discs (also patented by Johnson) and magnified it through the large brass bell.

This era of musical entertainment brought us a phrase that we have heard all our lives. These simple machines had no volume control, so the only way to quiet the music was to place a rolled sock in that bell. Instead of asking someone to turn down the volume, you would say, "Put a sock in it!" Our tour guide played the "talking machine" for us, and put a sock in it to quiet it down.

When women complained that those big metal bells were a pain to shine, and the machine was ugly in their parlors, the company responded with new models. Instead of being "talking machines" they became pieces of furniture and were called Victrolas.

Our tour guide explained that Thomas Edison was complaining about this new company, and brought a court case against them for copying his invention that brought recorded sound to the world. But the judge ruled that Edison's Graphophone used a cylinder, that was patently different than Johnson's flat disc. When Johnson won the court case, he named the company "Victor." 

The new company got its famous mascot when an artist painted a picture of a friend's dog tilting his head as he heard his master's voice from a confusing source.

The company bought that painting, and that dog began showing up on the Victor Company's record labels. That looks familiar to customers years later, as it would later become the mascot for the motorola company. We learned a lot and enjoyed our second private tour of the day. It turned a 15-minute self-guided-museum-walk-through into an hour and 15 minute private tour.

Just a block away from the current state capitol is the Old State House--our third tour on this 3D day. This original state capitol was built in 1791, and was outgrown in 1933. For the third time today, we got a private tour.

Delaware is very proud to call itself the "First State." That's because they were the first state to get their paperwork done and submitted to the new federal government on December 7, 1787. Being a tiny state made it easier to get a smaller group of state leaders together in a central location to vote on important things like ratifying the Constitution in this new United States. The entire state is made up of only 3 counties, so there were only 9 desks needed in this legislative hall in the old state house.

This is our second capitol staircase picture today. It was much easier to get this photo since we were the only visitors inside the Old State House.

This tiny state has an interesting capitol city that is easy to get to wherever you are staying in Delaware. We're glad we made the short road trip to see it for ourselves. We had three interesting private tours during our 3D Dover Delaware Day.