East Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania

Last updated September 19, 2024

East Mauch Chunk is a former independent borough in Carbon County, Pennsylvania, United States. Located along the east bank of the Lehigh River on the opposite bank from the town business district, it was part of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Originally in the former Township of Mauch Chunk, the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace of Carbon County, Pennsylvania, incorporated land on both sides of the Lehigh River into a borough by the name of The Borough of Mauch Chunk by decree of January 26, 1850, which became effective January 31, 1850.^[1] On January 21, 1854, an Act of Assembly was approved by Governor William Bigler incorporating that portion of the Borough of Mauch Chunk to the northeast of the center line of the Lehigh River into a separate borough by the name of The Borough of East Mauch Chunk.^[2]

On February 16, 1954, the Boroughs of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk entered into an agreement to hold a referendum on May 18, 1954, to determine if the boroughs should be consolidated as The Borough of Jim Thorpe. The referendum was approved by wide margins, with voters in the Borough of Mauch Chunk voting 1026 in favor to 90 against, and the Borough of East Mauch Chunk voting 1179 in favor to 109 against.^[3] As of January 3, 1955, the two boroughs were then united as one.

Geography

The neighborhood is located along the eastern left bank of the Lehigh River on the opposite bank from the Jim Thorpe business district. Situated on a gently rising slope of Bear Mountain, and its street grid is arrayed along either side of PA 903 which proceeds almost due northeast roughly parallel to the south-facing escarpment of Bear Mountain to connect with Albrightsville and originates across the bridge joining the neighborhood with Jim Thorpe's business district and Tees into US 209. By the 1790s, the area above the Lehigh Gap was being regularly penetrated by pioneers, and logging companies, in the face of the developing energy crisis, began small scale operations. Sitting to south of the dominant height of Broad Mountain across the Lehigh from where the Nesquehoning Creek crashes into the Lehigh in direct opposition, their confluence skews off at right angles to both in a wide mile long 'slack water pool' that sits between railyards on both banks and was the historic divide between the Mauch Chunk sides. Today's town, Jim Thorpe consisting of both halves is joined by a bridge, which was not so in the earliest days.

East Mauch Chunk had a bridge crossing the Lehigh Gorge above the railroad tracks of the Beaver Meadow Railroad, Lehigh Valley Railroad, and the Lehigh & Susquehanna Railroad giving access to the resort Inn above the picturesque Glen Onoko Falls. The land of East Mauch Chunk above the cut bank of the river floodplain slopes gradually up and away to the northeast from the river, and homeowners have a beautiful view supporting the region's nickname.

East Mauch Chunk was occupied first by European pioneering employees of the Lehigh Coal Mine Company in the early 1790s as a logging camp supporting the building of coal arks on the bank below and after Lausanne was settled, such crews timbering and boat building stayed at the Landing Tavern (and Inn) across the river along the Lausanne-Nescopeck Turnpike toll house at Lausanne Landing, then in 1818 became suburb of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company's fast growing activities, then found active growth as a railroad company town servicing the left bank rail yards of the Beaver Creek Railroad and Mining Company, then the successor Lehigh Valley Railroad founded in the 1870s.

Today the village is primarily a bedroom community and also a tourist waypoint as the southern entrance to Lehigh Gorge State Park; among other traffic, white water rafting and water sports sporting companies shuttle tourists into and through the community. The Norfolk Southern Railroad and Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroads still utilize the rail yard along the foot of Bear Mountain which towers above the town to the east and south. Mount Pisgah towering above Mauch Chunk Creek through the town's business district, as it splits into Pisgah Ridge and Nesquehoning Mountain and the flanking ridgelines of Mahoning Mountain to the south and Broad Mountain to the north are all seen nearly end on from East Mauch Chunk, making for a scenic vista in nearly any direction.

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The Lehigh Canal is a navigable canal that begins at the mouth of Nesquehoning Creek on the Lehigh River in the Lehigh Valley and Northeastern regions of Pennsylvania. It was built in two sections over a span of 20 years beginning in 1818. The lower section spanned the distance between Easton and present-day Jim Thorpe. In Easton, the canal met the Pennsylvania Canal's Delaware Division and Morris Canals, which allowed anthracite coal and other goods to be transported further up the U.S. East Coast. At its height, the Lehigh Canal was 72 miles (116 km) long.

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Nesquehoning Creek is an east flowing 14.9-mile-long (24.0 km) tributary of the Lehigh River in northeastern Pennsylvania in the United States.

The Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company (LCAN) (1988–2010) was a modern-day anthracite coal mining company headquartered in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. It acquired many properties and relaunched the Lehigh Coal Companies brand in 1988. The LCAN ran strip mining operations in the Panther Creek Valley east of Lansford, Pennsylvania along U.S. Route 209 with vast properties dominating the coal areas of Tamaqua, Coaldale, and Lansford.

Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company was a mining and transportation company headquartered in Mauch Chunk, now known as Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. The company operated from 1818 until its dissolution in 1964 and played an early and influential role in the American Industrial Revolution.

Mauch Chunk Creek is a 9.2-mile-long (14.8 km) tributary of the Lehigh River in Carbon County, Pennsylvania in the United States.

Panther Creek is a west-draining left-bank tributary of the Little Schuylkill River's drainage basin and rises in the vicinity of the east side of Lansford in the plateau-like nearly flat terrain of the complex three-way saddle between Mount Pisgah to its east, Nesquehoning Ridge to the north and Pisgah Ridge to the south, both ridgelines flanking its entire course as it makes its way east-northeast to west-southwest.

Pisgah Mountain, or Pisgah Ridge on older USGS maps, is a ridgeline running 12.5 miles (20.1 km) from Tamaqua to Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania from the Little Schuylkill River water gap to the Lehigh River water gap.

Mount Pisgah is a peak in Carbon County, Pennsylvania situated north-northwest from and looming over the right bank business district in downtown Jim Thorpe.

Nesquehoning Mountain or Nesquehoning Ridge is a 15–17-mile-long (24–27 km) coal bearing ridge dividing the waters of Lehigh Valley to the north from the Schuylkill River valley and the several near parallel ridgelines of the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians barrier range all local members of which run generally WSW-ENE in the greater overall area.

Mauch Chunk Ridge or Mauch Chunk Mountain is a historically important barrier ridgeline north of the Blue Mountain escarpment and 3rd parallel ridgeline south of the Nesquehoning Creek after Nesquehoning Mountain and Pisgah Ridge in the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Broad Mountain or Broad Ridge in the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians in Carbon County and Schuylkill County in Pennsylvania is a steep-faced, anthracite-bearing barrier ridge just south of both Beaver Meadows and Weatherly, north of Nesquehoning and west and south of the Lehigh River basin west of the southwest border of the Poconos. The mountain ridge line is mostly flat and looks very similar to the man-made piles of culm in the region from the roads and towns looking up.

The Hauto Tunnel, dug in 1871–72, was a 1.1-mile-long (1.8 km) single-track railway tunnel crossing under the barrier ridge of Nesquehoning Mountain between Lansford, Pennsylvania, in the Panther Creek Valley and the Central Railroad of New Jersey trackage near the dam of the Hauto Reservoir impoundment about 1.3 miles (2.1 km) above Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania. The tunnel was significant for cutting nearly 15 difficult mountainous miles (24 km) off the trip to the Lehigh Canal terminal or, by rail, to other eastern coal companies, in the era when anthracite was the king of energy fuels.

Lausanne Landing, Pennsylvania was a small settlement at the mouth of Nesquehoning Creek on the Lehigh River. Some historic references will mention the presence of a Landing Tavern as the entirety of the town. Lausanne Township was originally organized out of dense wilderness along an ancient Amerindian Trail, the Warriors' Path, an important regional route as it connected the Susquehanna River settlements of the lower Wyoming Valley to those around Philadelphia.

The Room Run Railroad was an early American gravity railroad with self-acting planes. It was built by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company to transport coal from the Room Run Mine in Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania to landings at Mauch Chunk on the Lehigh River so it could be shipped on the Lehigh Canal to the Delaware River at Easton, Pennsylvania to markets in Philadelphia or New York City via the Delaware or Morris Canals.

References

↑ "Proceedings Incorporating The Borough of Mauch Chunk." Miscellaneous Book 1, Page 164, recorded January 31, 1850. Recorder of Deeds of Carbon County, Pennsylvania, Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
↑ Act of January 21, 1854 (P.L. 4, No. 5), §§ 1-11
↑ "Consolidation Agreement between Council of the Borough of East Mauch Chunk and Council of the Borough of Mauch Chunk and Adoption of the Name 'Jim Thorpe.'" Charter Book 2, Page 609, recorded June 16, 1954. Recorder of Deeds of Carbon County, Pennsylvania, Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.

40°52′25″N75°44′00″W / 40.87361°N 75.73333°W / 40.87361; -75.73333

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[1] "Proceedings Incorporating The Borough of Mauch Chunk." Miscellaneous Book 1, Page 164, recorded January 31, 1850. Recorder of Deeds of Carbon County, Pennsylvania, Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.

[2] Act of January 21, 1854 (P.L. 4, No. 5), §§ 1-11

[3] "Consolidation Agreement between Council of the Borough of East Mauch Chunk and Council of the Borough of Mauch Chunk and Adoption of the Name 'Jim Thorpe.'" Charter Book 2, Page 609, recorded June 16, 1954. Recorder of Deeds of Carbon County, Pennsylvania, Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.

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