Marshall Steam Museum
| Auburn Heights Preserve | |
| Delaware State Park | |
 Israel Marshall's Home, Auburn Heights
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| Named for: Auburn Heights Mansion | |
| Country | United States |
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| State | Delaware |
| County | New Castle |
| Coordinates | 39°48′33″N 75°40′47″W / 39.80917°N 75.67972°WCoordinates: 39°48′33″N 75°40′47″W / 39.80917°N 75.67972°W |
| Area | 360 acres (146 ha) |
 Location of Auburn Heights Preserve in Delaware
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| Website: Auburn Heights Preserve | |
Auburn Heights Preserve is a state park, located in Yorklyn, Delaware, United States. The park, which is around 360 acres, preserves the former home and estate of the Marshall family as well as portions of the family's former mills alongside the Red Clay Creek and additional land purchased by the state. The preserve contains several miles of trails open to walking, biking, and antique cars, and the state owns conservation easements on 160 acres of privately owned land adjacent to the park to help maintain the park's rural character.
The park also features what the state bills as the largest collection of operational steam cars in the world, and a miniature coal-powered train that runs on tracks encircling the estate. The mansion, mills, and steam museum were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 as the Auburn Mills Historic District.
Interest in preserving land near the Red Clay Creek was first expressed to the state by local residents and conservation groups in 2000. With the nearby National Vulcanized Fiber company looking to downsize, there was a general agreement among advocates that an opportunity for conservation had presented itself. Tom Marshall, the owner of a local estate, began donating portions of his land to the Delaware Nature Society for conservation purposes. The state began acquiring land for a preserve in 2002, with a purchase of 104 acres of NVF land for $3 million and a purchase of 65 acres of Marshall's old land from the Delaware Nature Society for $2.3 million.
Additional purchases of 19 acres were made in 2005, bringing the preserve's total size to almost 200 acres. It was made a state park in 2008.
After NVF declared bankruptcy, the state purchased 42 of the company's 119 acres of land, bringing the main portion of the preserve to a total of 234 acres. The state also acquired conservation easements on much of the remaining NVF land and began working with its purchasing developer to establish a plan which would maintain open space, build a network of trails through the valley, and help revitalize the mill town by adaptive reuse of historic structures.
The Auburn Heights Mansion was built in 1897 by Israel Marshall, the descendant of a family of local farmers that immigrated to the United States in the seventeenth century. In 1890, Marshall and his brother purchased the nearby mills. The home was built in a Victorian style, and is situated on a large hill so that it overlooks the mill complex, and the town of Yorklyn, below. The fully furnished home and 4 acres of surrounding land were donated to the state in 2008 by Tom Marshall, the grandson of Israel Marshall, and tours are given in which visitors can learn about the family as well as the industrial history of the region.
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Wikipedia