The Bristol Pennsylvania Historic Borough

Rivers Canals and Trails that Shaped American Commerce and Manufacturing

Bristol is the oldest town in Bucks County and the third oldest in Pennsylvania. It is the southern terminus of the D&L Trail characterized by coal yards, shipyards, warehouses and textile mills. Its Delaware Riverfront resembles a New England seaport. During World War II, the shipyards were converted for use in the manufacturing of aircraft. Today, Bristol hosts special events near the river and the Radcliffe Street Historic District. The improved waterfront and the nearby 235-acre sanctuary Silver Lake Nature Center offer miles of trails and habitats of more than 160 species of birds, raccoon, muskrats, opossum and deer.

The History of Bristol Borough closely parallels the economic, commercial, and industrial history of the United States. In the late ’60s, U.S. Steel Corporation closed its facilities and thousands of employees lost their jobs.

Bristol is Home to America’s Oldest Continuously Operating Inn

Founded in 1681, Bristol Borough is nestled along the Delaware River and midway between Philadelphia and New York. The self-described gritty town benefits from an East Coast resiliency but is also home to hospitable residents. The building of the 60 miles (96.6 km) long, forty feet wide, and five feet deep Delaware Canal, Bristol became a transshipment gateway connecting the coal barges flowing down the Lehigh Canal from Easton to Philadelphia. Its docks also had regular ferry services to New Jersey. Later, rail service would also connect the anthracite flowing through the canals, to the riverine barge and boat traffic, and to provide rail depots servicing the manufacturing sector.

By the 1880s Bristol was home to many factories, including companies manufacturing wall paper and carpeting. In World War I, the Bristol docks had sufficient space for a shipyard to construct twelve building slips for the construction of merchant vessels. Between the world wars, the eighty-acres of the shipyard were let out to various concerns, including one area converted to building the flying boats amphibious planes. 

During World War II the old shipyards were used to build airplanes. Today the preserved elements of the shipyard, and other buildings once important in Bristol's past service are enshrined and celebrated in the Bristol Historic District and Industrial District.

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

Walking Biking and Cruising the Delaware and Lehigh Valley Trail

165 miles of nature history preservation recreation and education

From its origins as a means to transport anthracite coal from the mines of Luzerne and Carbon County to the markets in the Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia, the D&L Trail is now a multi-use trail originating from the mountains of northeast Pennsylvania through the rivers and communities of the Lehigh Valley and Bucks County.

A Trail that Connects People to Unique Environmental and Community Experiences

Visiting The National Canal Museum, cruising aboard the Josiah White II, walking and riding your bike on the canal towpaths are among the ways to explore the Lehigh Valley and the 60-mile long National Historic Landmark located within Delaware Canal State Park in Bucks and Northampton counties.

Conversations on the Canal are dinner cruises that focus on the major ethnic groups in the D&L Corridor and why they came to America. Learn about the Ulster Scots, the first immigrants from the island known in Gaelic as Éire, who became known as Scots-Irish in North America.  An estimated 200,000 Ulster Scots left for the American colonies during the 1700s thanks to Pennsylvania’s tradition of religious tolerance. Between 1815 and 1834, a second wave of nearly 400 thousand immigrants also came here.

A Vision for the Delaware Canal the idea to construct a pedestrian bridge across the Lehigh River at Jim Thorpe was first conceived in the D&L’s 1992 Management Action Plan.  After countless steps from concept to design to funding and then re-funding, the bridge is the critical connector linking 40 miles of trail located north of Jim Thorpe to the Lehigh Valley.   Just south of Jim Thorpe, two separate but integral projects will make the connection between Carbon County and Lehigh County smooth and safe.  They include plans for a retaining wall and improved towpath trail between Jim Thorpe and Weissport in Lehigh Canal Park.   

Wineries and Breweries the Lehigh Valley is home to a Wine Trail and an Ale Trail. Selected bars and pubs have upwards of 60% of their taps consistently dedicated to craft beers. The local products can also be tasted while cruising the canal.