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<rail 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 19th Century.
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 19th 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