This Stoddard-Dayton camping car was built for engineer and politician Thomas Coleman du Pont (1863-1930).
Du Pont used the vehicle during his supervision of the construction of the DuPont Highway through the state of Delaware. The DuPont Highway was proposed in 1908 by Thomas Coleman DuPont, a two-time U.S. senator, as a modern road that was to run from Selbyville north to Wilmington as part of a philanthropic measure. At Wilmington, it connected to the Philidelphia Pike which had been made in the 1820s This DuPont Highway was planned to improve travel and bring economic development to Kent and Sussex counties, and was to be modeled after the great boulevards of Europe with a 200-foot wide right-of-way consisting of a 40-foot wide roadway for automobiles flanked by dual trolley lines, 30-foot wide roadways for heavy vehicles, 15-foot wide unpaved roadways for horses, and sidewalks. Utilities were to be buried underground below the horse roadways. The highway was also to include agricultural experimental stations and monuments for future surveying. Trolley revenues would help pay for t...