Kenton, DE

Kenton is a town in Kent County, Delaware, at the meeting of Route 42 and Route 300 in Kenton Hundred. The settlement began around a public house serving travelers between Dover and the Chester River, then moved through the names Grog-Town and Lewis' Cross Roads before becoming Kenton in 1806. A post office opened in 1857, and the Maryland and Delaware Railroad arrived after the Civil War. That rail connection turned Kenton into a shipping point for local goods and helped bring the town its strongest period of commercial activity.

By the 1880s Kenton had several active businesses and a busy commercial center. The town was incorporated in 1887, while the Kenton Historic District preserves the older crossroads pattern. Main Street, the former railroad corridor, and the routes toward Clayton, Smyrna, and Maryland make the town easy to place on a Delaware map. Kenton's story is a steady progression from roadside public house to postal village, then to railroad shipping point, with the same road junction holding the pieces together.