Delaware County, N.Y., can’t take Delco away from Delco

I’ve long been aware that there are other Philadelphias in the world. There’s one in Mississippi, one in South Africa, and one right here in Pennsylvania — New Philadelphia, a rural Schuylkill County borough with a bustling population of 1,008.

Philadelphia is a cool name and it comes with an inherent nickname that’s equally as cool. Who wouldn’t want that for their town? I get it and I’m not even salty about it because when you say Philly, folks know what city you’re referring to, just like when you say “Go Birds,” everybody knows you aren’t talking about the Seahawks.

I always assumed there were places that shared our suburban counties’ names as well, but never in a million Wawa Hoagiefests did I expect there to be another Delco, especially not one that also has its own merch. That’s our weird thing.

But after following up on a tip from my editor — who saw a reference to “Delco, N.Y.” — I found a website for DELCO, “a lifestyle brand celebrating rural culture through fashion, design & authentic content in Upstate NY.”

The company sells shirts and hoodies that read “DELCO NEW YORK,” flags in “John Deer Green” that read the same, and a trucker hat with Calvin (the comic strip character) urinating on the word DELCO.

It’s not clear how this lifestyle brand can produce “authentic content” while soaking in a hot tub full of boiling lies, for there is only one true Delco and it’s here, in Southeastern Pa.

Delco residents haven’t spent years putting the word Delco on everything, receiving national attention for some of the most bizarre crimes imaginable, and staking their giant Delco flags at the Jersey Shore like it was the moon to have some ersatz “Delco” capitalize off their questionably good name.

“We’ve defined what it means to be Delco,” Rob MacPherson, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Visit Delco, told me.

Fran McElwee, marketing strategist for the county tourism agency, agreed.

“We are who we are and we know it,” she said. “We’re the OG.”

Requests for interviews with a representative of DELCO, the New York lifestyle brand, and with the president of the board of supervisors for Delaware County, N.Y., were not returned. Isn’t that interesting.

There are at least six Delaware Counties in the United States, one each in Indiana, Iowa, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania. But ours was the first, having been established in 1789.

While many of those counties also use some form of Delco (DelCo, Del-Co, etc.) for municipal government website URLs or public utilities names, Delaware County, N.Y., appears to be the only one trying to co-opt Delco as a culture.

Our Delco and the one in New York were both named after the Delaware River, which forms the border between the Empire State’s Delaware County in its southern tier and Pennsylvania’s Wayne County, in the far northeast.

Both counties also have municipalities named Middletown, we don’t like New York City folks coming in and mucking stuff up, and we have an affinity for mullets, as evidenced by the models on the DELCO lifestyle brand’s website. But that’s where the similarities end.

Delaware County, N.Y., is rural (which, if you’re from real Delco, would be pronounced so it rhymes with “gurrrl” for emphasis). It’s 1,467 square miles with 29 municipalities and 44,191 residents, so it’s safe to assume there are more deer there than people.

According to the county website, top activities include fishing, snowmobiling, and hiking. Historically, the region was known for its sawmills, dairy farms, and the Western Catskills.

Delco, Pa., on the other hand, is more suburban than a Chevy or a cul-de-sac. It shoves 49 municipalities and 584,882 people into 184 square miles. This county is like a damn clown car. We don’t even know how we all fit in here, we’re just along for the ride.

Our top Delco activities include tailgating, Wawa runs, and creative shenanigans. Historically, we were the first landing site of William Penn in Pennsylvania, the county where Martin Luther King Jr. attended seminary school, and the birthplace of the Slinky and stromboli.

But our greatest asset, what makes us the real Delco, is our culture.

People here are so passionate they’ve made a Delco movie, Delco beer, and Delco-set TV shows. Residents get Delco tattoos, there’s a state-recognized Delco Day, and I once interviewed a guy who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with the sole purpose of waving a Delco flag at the top.

So whenever “Delco,” N.Y. wants to wave one of its flags in truce, we’ll gladly come take it.

“Delco is different, it’s a personality, it’s a way of life, there’s an authenticity about Delco you don’t find in other counties,” McElwee told me.

Zac Beaver, programming and libraries manager for the Delaware County Historical Society, said Delco’s hyperlocal culture sets it apart. It has its own accent, history, and even its own love language.

“A hoagie tray is a meaningful unit of generosity,” Beaver said.

There are even unspoken rules for Delco neighborhood bars.

“They don’t have a website, only a Facebook page at most,” MacPherson said. “And no more than two IPAs on tap.”

He theorized that part of the county’s strong identity comes from the fact that there are so many municipalities and many folks attended Catholic schools or school districts like Interboro, which cover several townships.

“So your commonality was your county and not your hometown,” MacPherson said. “I think that’s led to the notion of Delco.”

Delco residents “don’t have very lofty ideas about what it means to be from Delco, like [they would] if they were from New York City or California,” Beaver told me, and they may come across to some as brusque, but that’s just because they’re engaged and “as likely to say something negative as positive to you, whereas in the rest of the country they just won’t talk to you,” Beaver said.

Such hyperlocal culture isn’t true of everywhere, Beaver posited.

“If you live in suburban Iowa you might as well live in suburban Nebraska,” he said. “I think it has to do with the flattening of the American experience. I think everyone else has changed more than we have.”

Philly’s other burbs also have their own culture but don’t exhibit the level of outward pride I see in Delco. I asked Beaver if he had any theories.

“Because they’re rich,” he said. “They’ve been desirable places for a long time. Delco was looked down on for a long time … and that makes people proud of it.”

MacPherson agreed.

“The pride comes from having a little bit of a chip on the shoulder,” he said.

It’s unclear when Delco was first used as a nickname for Delaware County, Pa., but embarrassingly, the first “Delco” reference I can find in The Inquirer’s archives was for a guest from Delco, N.Y. who checked into a Philadelphia hotel in 1860. (I don’t know why newspapers used to print hotel registries, aside from the act we’ve always been nosy little buggers.)

In 1861, The Inquirer referenced a “Del.co” that appears to be the one in Pennsylvania, and I found subsequent Del.co references in our archives throughout the late 1800s. It’s only shortly after the turn of the 20th century that “Delco” seems to have come into regular use when referring to things and people from the suburban county.

“There is the Delco Baseball League founded in 1908 and they still exist,” Beaver said.

Delco is also a brand name. There’s ACDelco automotive parts (a remnant of Delco Electronics), Delco flatware, and Delco Foods, an Italian food distributor in Indiana. So there’s a minute possibility “Delco,” N.Y., could have been inspired to take its name from one of them.

I even found an 1879 reference to a man named Delco in a crime blurb in The Inquirer:

“ … In Cincinnati yesterday two men Jim Dermont, the cook, and Isadore Delco, a server in a Sixth Street restaurant, quarreled over the dignity of their respective positions, and Delco was badly stabbed.”

I didn’t find a follow-up story but I have no doubt Delco survived the fight, because it always does — at least in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

So to this phony flimflam “Delco” — bring it on. We’ve been around longer and we have more people, more pride, and more culture. Plus, as Philly sports fans and Delco residents, we have a chip on our shoulder bigger than a family bag of Herr’s.

“Just by sheer force, we’re winning,” McElwee said.