Historic Lehigh Valley Towns

Allentown Bethlehem Easton Nazareth Hazelton Jim Thorpe Wilkes-Barre

Allentown was a rural village founded in 1762 by William Allen, Chief Justice of Colonial Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court, known as Northampton town. A thriving town with roots in the iron industry, by 1829 Allentown expanded from a small Pennsylvania Dutch village of farmers and tradesmen to a center of commerce. With the opening of the Lehigh Canal, many canal workers made their homes here.

The Lehigh Valley Gave Birth to America’s Industrial Revolution

The Allentown Art Museum is one of the city’s main attractions and the Museum of Indian Culture honors the legacy of native Lenape people. Allentown’s Canal Park provides easy access to the D&LTrail and access to the waterways for hikers, bikers, joggers, paddlers and fishermen.
Named on Christmas Eve, 1741, by a group of Moravians who relocated from North Carolina and settled at the confluence of the Lehigh River and Monocacy Creek. The canal and the railroads lured large-scale industry to the south bank of the Lehigh River and the Bethlehem Iron Co., soon dominated the town’s economy and way of life. Steel made from local iron, coal and limestone was milled and forged, launching the Industrial Revolution of the late 19^th Century.

Bethlehem is the Lehigh Valley’s Oldest City

Bethlehem has six distinct National Historic Districts as well as two National Historic landmarks. Many of its original structures built by early settlers still line downtown streets.

Easton is located at what the Lenape Indians knew as the Forks of the Delaware where the Lehigh and Delaware rivers merge and where the frontier town was laid out by William Penn. The town’s focal point was, and still is, a large central square. The first public reading of the Declaration of Independence outside of Philadelphia took place in Easton’s Centre Square in 1776 near the oldest continually running open-air Farmer’s Market in the United States.

Nazareth is located seven miles northwest of Easton, four miles north of Bethlehem and twelve miles northeast of Allentown at the foot of the Blue Mountain and includes the townships of Bushkill, Lower Nazareth, Upper Nazareth and the boroughs of Nazareth, Stockertown and Tatamy. Nazareth is the hometown of the world famous Andretti formula 1 auto racing family.

Hazelton is located in the foothills of the Poconos, a vacation destination that offers year round recreation as a vacation destination. Starting from the 1830s, the borough’s population grew steadily until the 1880s when waves of eastern European immigrants arrived to take jobs in coal industry. In 1891, it was chartered as a city.

Jim Thorpe was named after the legendary Native American athlete. It was originally established in 1818 as Mauch Chunk where entrepreneurs led by Josiah White formed the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company that shipped anthracite coal and other goods to market via the Lehigh and Delaware Canals. The town’s steep hillsides, narrow streets, and terraced gardens earned it the nickname The Switzerland of America. Today, the restored Old Mauch Chunk Railroad Station in the center of the town offers visitor services and train rides into Lehigh Gorge. The Opera House presents live theater and music.

WPart of the Wyoming Valley with the Susquehanna River flowing through the center of town, in the 1800s, hundreds of thousands of immigrants came to Wilkes-Barre to work the mines leading to economic and cultural changes and affecting the railroad-and-canal system that stretched 165 miles southward to Bristol.

Coal as an Efficient Heat Source in a Thriving Region where Mining was King

Delaware and Lehigh Valleys Coal Iron Steel and Canals

The Coal Iron Steel and Canals of the Delaware and Lehigh Valleys

The Delaware & Lehigh five county region of Northeastern Pennsylvania developed in the late 18^th Century as a result of the anthracite mines, the iron and steel industries, and the canals built to reach Philadelphia .

Land People and History the Lenape of the Delaware Valley hunted deer, grew grains and vegetables, and caught seafood along the coast.  The Lehigh Valley was of great importance because it was one of their main east-west pathways, intersecting with major north-south aboriginal trails in the Delaware Valley. Despite its prominence as a crossroads, the Great Valley was the site of few permanent villages, although they often camped at the confluence of the Lehigh and Delaware rivers in what is now Easton.

  

 

Delaware and Lehigh Valley Local Native Plant Gardens, Family fishing in New Hope and Bristol Amish Market 
The first Europeans in the Lehigh Valley were Scots-Irish who followed the Saucon and Indian creeks and established settlements in today’s Northampton County. Large numbers of Germans came into the Lehigh Valley in the 1730s.  Among them were the Schwenkfelders from Saxony and Mennonites, known for their skills as craftsmen and millers, and for establishing schools.  Most of the Germans became known as Pennsylvania Dutch and grew maize, squash, wheat and livestock. At least 50 different nations and ethnic groups have been identified among the immigrants of the 1800s; many arrived at Ellis Island and traveled straight to the Lehigh Valley. Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton thrived by the late 19^th Century.
The Delaware and Lehigh Valleys played a major role during the American Revolution. George Washington’s crossed the Delaware River in 1776, the second reading of Declaration of Independence was held in Easton and the Liberty Bell was hidden from the British here.

The Discovery of Anthracite in 1791, Carbon County set the stage for America’s Industrial Revolution, the founding of small towns, the birth of industrial powerhouses such as Bethlehem Steel and the development of the Lehigh and Delaware Canals. Also known as stone coal because of its rock-like hardness, it appeared atop hills and under valleys in seams or veins up to 12 feet thick. Industries involving iron, steel, Portland cement and zinc processing flourished, followed by tanneries, silk and textile mills. These raw materials led to commercial, transportation and cultural opportunities along a 165-mile route through the Wyoming, Lehigh and Delaware Valleys.

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Transportation and Communications the Lehigh River carved a trail that would eventually become the backbone of future transportation routes. Footpaths along the river banks gave way to canals, then to railroads, and finally to modern-day highways. Nowhere is this more apparent than at Lehigh Gap, a dramatic landscape where the Lehigh River breaks through Blue Mountain, also known as Kittatiny Ridge, the final ridge in the Appalachian chain. The Delaware Canal was built during the early 19^th Century from Easton to Bristol on the Delaware River fostering development of textile mills such as the Grundy complex, steel mills like the Fairless Works and planned suburban community like Levittown. Completion of the Lehigh Canal further accelerated development of the Valley.

The 1862 floods destroyed all the dams, locks and canal boats and coal shipping shifted to railroads.  The Lehigh Valley Railroad, which ran through Easton and on to New York City, was the first rail line to have a significant impact. The Lehigh & Susquehanna Railroad and Reading & Pennsylvania Railroad created competition for shipping coal and other goods. The Delaware Canal was a transport link with limited industrial impact on the rural, farm region it flowed through.

Culture and The Environment in more recent times, the region has been in the forefront of land conservation, historic preservation and an arts movement that celebrates land and landscapes. The local culture draws from the Moravian settlements experience in which all men were equal, hence a unique and broad cultural environment in which music, art, education and religious tolerance flourished, as shown in the communal dwellings, churches and industrial structures in Bethlehem and Nazareth.

                                                 

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