09/02/2022
Just wanted to share the history of how projects came to be in Erie & Railroad track housing! Per our family history discussion!
The development was located in the 1900 block of West 12th Street. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation demolished the majority of the development in 1974 to make way for the extension of Interstate-79, extending it from 28th to 12th Street. The Erie Housing Authority sold Delaware Place to the state for the sum of $900,000.
Delaware Place begun as a defense housing project during World War II in June of 1943. It consisted of 200 dwelling units at 12th and Delaware Avenue. Built as temporary housing for defense workers employed at the factories nearby, the total cost of the project was $716,000. Owing to scarcity of materials, the houses were heated with old-fashioned coal stoves, and refrigeration was ice-boxes.
After the war, in 1955, Delaware Place was under the management of Erie’s housing authority, when Fred and Ruth E. Schetter, together with their two children, Nancy and Frederick, were tenants in the housing project. A hot water tank exploded that resulted in a fire and the destruction of their apartment, which resulted in the death of the two children, Nancy and Frederick.