Much of Brandywine Creek State Park was originally a portion of the du Pont family's
Winterthur estate. The Wheelwrights maintained the estate until Robert's death in 1965. With plans in motion to transform the rural scenic estate into housing developments, local citizens convinced the state that it should preserve the land. With a grant from the United States
Land and Water Conservation Fund that had been established earlier that year, and with additional grants from
Pierre S. du Pont's
Longwood Foundation, the state purchased the and established Brandywine Creek State Park in 1965. The park was brought up to its present size in 1981, when an additional were donated to the state by
William Poole Bancroft's Woodlawn Trustees. Bancroft, a nationally recognized land conservationist with a deep appreciation for the beauty of the Brandywine, had become concerned about the expansion of nearby Wilmington and purchased a considerable amount of land in the Brandywine region with the intention of preserving it as open space parkland for future generations. He had also established the Trustees to continue acquiring land around the Brandywine after his death to be managed as parkland. The
Brandywine Valley National Scenic Byway runs along the border of Brandywine Creek State Park, and as of 2013, the park is adjacent to over of additional Woodlawn land that was donated to the federal government to form
First State National Historical Park. ==Activities and amenities==