The Delaware General Assembly approved a state-aid road law in 1903, but the law was repealed in 1905. Instead, the driving force for the construction of what became the Delaware portion of US 113 was Thomas Coleman DuPont, who offered to fund and construct a modern highway from Selbyville to Wilmington as a philanthropic measure. Inspired by the great boulevards of Europe and cognizant of the need for a main north–south highway as the backbone of a well-laid-out system of roads in Delaware, DuPont envisioned a right-of-way that contained a high-speed automobile highway flanked by dual trolley tracks, roadways for heavy vehicle traffic, unpaved roadways for horses above buried utility lines, and sidewalks at the outer edge of the right-of-way. The construction costs of the road would be recovered by trolley franchises and utility line rentals. After sections of the highway were built, they would be turned over without charge to the state, which would maintain the road.Milner, pp. 6, 8.
