Millville is a town in Sussex County,

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic states, South Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders Maryland to its south and west, Pennsylvania to its north, New Jersey ...

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. The population in 2020 was 1,825, It is part of the Salisbury, Maryland-Delaware Metropolitan Statistical Area and lies within Baltimore Hundred.

Geography

Millville is located at (38.5495569, –75.1232391), approximately west of the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

and about south of Indian River Bay. It is contiguous on the east with Ocean View, and bordered on the north, west and south by unincorporated portions of Sussex County. According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, the town has a total area of , in which all of it was land.

Transportation

Roads are the main means of transportation to and from Millville. Delaware Route 26 is the primary state highway serving the town, passing through on an east–west alignment. It heads eastward toward Bethany Beach and west to U.S. Route 113 in Dagsboro. Delaware Route 17 is the other primary highway serving Millville, heading southwestward from its junction with DE 26 just northwest of town, skimming the southwestern edge of town, then traversing rural areas until it reaches Selbyville.

Government

Elected officials

Millville has a council-manager form of government. Under the current governmental structure and electoral system, which went into effect with the election of March 3, 2001, a five-person

town council A town council, city council or municipal council is a form of local government for small municipalities. Usage of the term varies under different jurisdictions. Republic of Ireland In 2002, 49 urban district councils and 26 town commissi ...

governs the town. After each election, the council elects one of its members to serve as

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...

. Another council member serves as deputy mayor, another as

treasurer A treasurer is a person responsible for the financial operations of a government, business, or other organization. Government The treasury of a country is the department responsible for the country's economy, finance and revenue. The treasure ...

, and another as

secretary A secretary, administrative assistant, executive assistant, personal secretary, or other similar titles is an individual whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, program evalu ...

, while the fifth council member serves as a council member alone with no additional duties. Each council member serves a two-year term, and the terms are staggered so that three of the council members are elected in each odd-numbered year and two in each even-numbered year.Town of Millville, Delaware, official Web site
/ref> The Annual Municipal Election is held on the first Saturday in March. Anyone 18 years old or older registered to vote in Millville may run for the town council as long as the candidate has lived in Millville for at least 90 days before the date of that years election. If only one person runs for a particular council seat, that person takes office automatically without any election being held that year for that seat. If no one runs for a particular council seat, the

incumbent The incumbent is the current holder of an office or position. In an election, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the position that is up for election, regardless of whether they are seeking re-election. There may or may not be ...

automatically serves another term without any election being held that year for that seat.

Appointed officials and town operations

A town manager oversees the day-to-day operations of the town. The

Delaware State Police The Delaware State Police (DSP) is a division of the Delaware Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security and is responsible for traffic regulation and law enforcement across the US State of Delaware, especially in areas underserved by loc ...

provides police service to Millville under a contract with the Town and the Millville Volunteer Fire Company serves Millville, Ocean View, and unincorporated portions of Sussex County as far east as the Assawoman Canal and as almost as far west as Dagsboro; it purchased its first motor-driven firefighting vehicle in 1936Town of Millville: History
/ref> and today operates 16 vehicles. Sussex County handled all

land use Land use is an umbrella term to describe what happens on a parcel of land. It concerns the benefits derived from using the land, and also the land management actions that humans carry out there. The following categories are used for land use: fo ...

regulation Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...

in Millville until 1993, when Millville itself began to pass

zoning In urban planning, zoning is a method in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into land-use "zones", each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for ...

ordinances to control growth.

History

The early settlement of the Millville area by

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

ans is poorly recorded, although it is known that the

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

marsh In ecology, a marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous plants rather than by woody plants.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p More in genera ...

y nature of much of the land of eastern Baltimore Hundred in southeastern Delaware when the first Europeans arrived led them to establish

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

s on higher ground in the vicinity of what are now Millville, Ocean View, and Clarksville. Millville itself grew up around a

steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

-powered

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

operated by

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

Peter Townshend in the late 19th century, becoming a center for

lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...

, agricultural products, and

commercial fishing Commercial fishing is the activity of catching fish and other seafood for Commerce, commercial Profit (economics), profit, mostly from wild fisheries. It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice ...

. For a time, the names "Dukestown" and "Dukesville" were considered for the town because of the prominence and number of members of the Dukes family who lived in the area. Eventually, the town was named Millville because of the

sorghum ''Sorghum bicolor'', commonly called sorghum () and also known as great millet, broomcorn, guinea corn, durra, imphee, jowar, or milo, is a species in the Poaceae, grass genus ''Sorghum (genus), Sorghum'' cultivated for its grain. The grain i ...

mills,

lumber mill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimens ...

s and

grist mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that h ...

s in the area. Millville was incorporated in 1906. It had a population of 206 at the time,Meehan, p. 138 and has grown in population only very slowly since, reaching only 259 by the 2000

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

. However, the population more than doubled by the 2010 census, rising to 544 residents, the highest in the recorded history of Millville. Millville was considered the principal town of Baltimore Hundred, although this today lacks meaning because Delaware's hundreds lost their political functions long ago and now serve only as geographic points of reference.

Notes

References

Town of Millville, Delaware, official web site
*''ADC Map Book Sussex County, Delaware, 1st Edition''. Alexandria Drafting Company: Alexandria, Virginia, 2005. *Meehan, James D. ''Bethany Beach Memoirs...A Long Look Back''. Harold E. Dukes Jr.: Bethany Beach, Delaware, 1998. .

External links

* http://millville.delaware.gov/ {{authority control Towns in Sussex County, Delaware Towns in Delaware Salisbury metropolitan area