Broiler Farmer. Entrepreneur. Cecile Steele is the founder of Delaware's broiler chicken industry and is considered the pioneer of the commercial broiler industry. Today Delaware produces about 215 million broiler chickens a year and is home to three of the top twenty broiler processing companies in the U. S. – Allen Harim, Mountaire, and Townsend. However, before the 1920s, chickens were not raised for meat in commercial broiler houses; instead they were raised for egg production on small family farms mainly for the family's diet or to barter at the general store. Cecile lived on such a farm in Ocean View and in 1923 ordered fifty chicks from Vernon Steen's Dagsboro hatchery to supplement her egg-laying flock. Instead she received five hundred chicks. Rather than send the extra 450 chicks back, she raised them until the surviving 387 chicks reached two pounds live weight and sold them for profit at 62 cents a pound. The following year, Cecile increased her flock size to 1000 chickens and sold them for 50 cents a pound. In 1926, she raised and sold 10,000 broilers, and by 1928 she increased that number to 26,000. Neighbors saw her success and started raising broiler chickens for profit until by 1928, there were 500 broiler farms in Delmarva. By the early 1930s, broiler chickens became the dominant industry in Delmarva with Sussex County in Delaware becoming the leading broiler-producing county in the US in 1936. Cecile's new business brought her family out of poverty. They purchased more substantial home in Ocean View, a new car, and a $10,000 yacht named The Lure. Tragically, Cecile and her husband David Wilmer, now a Delaware state senator, did not enjoy their success for long. On October 7, 1942 they, their guests John A. Tubbs and Mrs. Elliot Evans, and the yacht captain William Murray were fishing off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland when they decided to head back to port. David stepped on the starter pedal to restart the yacht's engine when the carburetor backfired, igniting gasoline fumes and setting off an explosion that threw everyone into the water. A second explosion, probably the fuel tanks, enveloped the boat in flames. The Steeles died from heart failure according to the coroner's inquest while Captain William Murray, John A. Tubbs, and Mrs. Evans survived with burns. Although the newspapers only reported her husband's life and political career, Cecile eventually got her dues. On July 3, 1974, Mrs. Wilmer's Broiler House, as it was known, entered the National Register of Historic Places. On October 25, 1983, Cecile Steele was inducted into the Delaware Hall of Fame for Women for her part in the start of one of Delaware's most important economic activities. In 2011, the Steele house was converted into the restaurant Café on 26.