On Saturday, April 27, our social media followers joined the Delaware State Parks marketing team for the spring InstaMeet at Auburn Valley State Park!

What is an InstaMeet? These free events (with paid park admission) allow our State Parks social media community the opportunity to come together, meet new people, take photos, and enjoy our parks!

For this InstaMeet, we gathered at Delaware’s newest state park, Auburn Valley! We chose Auburn Valley for this InstaMeet because we wanted to provide an opportunity to experience this new park. Not only did we tour the mansion and grounds, but we also had the rare opportunity to step inside the abandoned NVF Paper Mill.

This time, we broke the large group into 3 smaller groups. Then the groups rotated through the mansion, grounds, and the Paper Mill. At the end of the night, we all gathered back in the parking lot to share cookies, lemonade, and stories from a great night.

Enjoy some highlights from this awesome InstaMeet!

Dating back to 1897, the Marshall mansion tells the story of the family that once called Auburn Valley State Park home. We toured the foyer of this historic mansion and took photos of the objects inside.

We even got to listen to a historic Regina music box!

 

Next, we walked around the grounds of the mansion and learned about the history of the Marshall family.

Finally, we toured the abandoned NVF Paper Mill. This mill has been abandoned for 10 years, and we had the rare opportunity to go inside, see what it was like to work there,  and learn about the history of the mill.

 

 

We ended the night with cookies from Insomnia in Newark! Yum!

 

 

Keep an eye on Delaware State Parks social media sites for info on our next InstaMeet. If you couldn’t make it this time around, you can still join the conversation and share your adventures in Delaware State Parks by using the hashtag #DEStateParks. We love to see what our guests are up to and may even feature your photo!