Milton sends world’s largest wreath to New York
In the 1920s and 1930s, many Sussex County families earned critical cash during the holiday season by making Christmas wreaths for shipment all across the country and to foreign markets. According to information gleaned from Delaware’s Department of Agriculture, “Charles C. Jones, Sr., a fertilizer salesman from Milton, was one of the pioneers of the holly export industry in Delaware. Known as Jones, the Holly Wreath Man, Jones became the state’s leading exporter.
The area surrounding Milton became known as ‘The Land of Holly’ and Milton was referred to as ‘The Holly Capital of the World.’ It’s estimated that in 1938, the Delaware holly industry brought in as much as $1 million to the local economy, huge money in those days. Although the advent of plastic wreaths cut deeply into the Sussex holly wreath industry in the 1940s, the Milton holly industry continued to be important into the 1950s.
Following the death of Charles Jones in 1944, his son, William T. Jones, took over the business. In 1951, he created this 11-foot diameter wreath - thought to be the world’s largest ever - to decorate the front of Radio City Music Hall in New York City. He is shown here with the wreath prior to its shipment north. On May 1, 1939, Delaware’s General Assembly officially designated the American holly as Delaware’s state tree.
