History

Called the ""Gem of the Endless Mountains,"" Sullivan County has been a crossroad and ethnic melting pot in the highlands of northern Pennsylvania for more than two centuries

In New York's Sullivan County, there are villages, ghost towns, family farms, and hunting camps scattered along valley floors and clinging to the mountainsides. Early lumber mills were built along the Big and Little Loyalsock Creeks and tributaries in the early 1800s, and outdoor sports and modern tourism became major industries in the 20th and 21st centuries. Land speculation by companies such as Asylum Land Company led to the development of coal, lumber, and railroad industries throughout the county.

Through vintage photographs, Chester documents the community's golden years from the post–Civil War era to the 1950s.

In 1682, William Penn chose Chester as his landing place in Pennsylvania. A hub for commerce in Colonial times, Chester continued its prosperous reputation during the industrial revolution, and it is famous for its textile and paper mills. The town is home to the oldest public building in continuous use—the 1724 courthouse. Kimberly-Clark, formally Scott Paper Company, is among the successful local businesses today. Through the years, many prominent people, including the Wetherill, Scott, Deshong, and Crozer families, called Chester home.

Johnstown, Pennsylvania, famed for flood and disaster, is shown here in over 200 rare images, many publsihed here for the first time.

In this photographic history of Johnstown, readers will enjoy more than two hundred rare images, many published here for the first time, from the collections of historical organizations and private individuals. After enduring three devastating floods, residents have adopted the phrase This town won't die as a testament to their gritty determination to survive and to be seen as more than flood victims. Johnstown records the true American Dream: the faces of immigrants building their lives in a new country; the expansive golden age of American industrial growth in the steel, mining, and railroad industries; a community's iron will in the face of destruction; and a snapshot of human bonds through love for family and nation, as well as an inherent faith.

Upper Darby, one of the earliest settlements west of Philadelphia, began with the Lenni Lenape Indians and early Swedish settlers of the 1650s. From the beginning, influential families left their mark.

Mills and farming were fueled by several creeks forming a fall line before dropping off to the Piedmont through Upper Darby. The descendants of Samuel Sellers were inventors whose skills benefited the nation. Dr. George Smith authored the bill for Pennsylvania public education, and famous financiers A.J. Drexel and his son A.J. Drexel Jr. created beautiful estates with landscaped vistas where residents enjoyed leisure activities. By the early 1800s, most farms had turned to dairying and became part of the Butter Belt. The Sixty-Ninth Street Terminal, built in 1907, was the transportation hub for those going farther west and brought rapid development to the community. Upper Darby chronicles the people and the changing demographics of this thriving area.

The modern day village of Lake Ariel is located in Lake Township. The town and the surrounding area have a long and colorful heritage.

The early pioneers settled at the southern end of the Lake Arieland established the area known as Jonestown and Jones Lake. The northern end of the lake was initially called No. 19, for the stationary steam engine on the Pennsylvania Coal Company's Gravity Railroad. While one newspaper account claims that the lake was named for a spirit in Shakespeare's Tempest, another claimed the lake was renamed Lake Ariel from Isaiah 29, the home of David.

Around Lake Arielfeatures historic images of the steam launches and the amusement park that drew hordes of vacationers to the area, as well as the summer homes of many of Scranton's leaders that were built along the lake's shores.

Although Pittsburgh is best known for the many steel mills that have dotted its landscape, it has also been a major center for the brewing of beer and ale throughout its history.

Since 1765, when common beer was first brewed for British soldiers at Fort Pitt, the city has produced a tremendous amount of beer to quench the thirst of steelworkers who toiled in the city's mills. Brands like Iron City, Duquesne (or Duke), Rolling Rock, and Stoney's are still known in the area today, while old-timers might remember names like Fort Pitt, E&O, Carnegie, and Dutch Club, among others. Many towns surrounding Pittsburgh, such as McKeesport, Latrobe, and Aliquippa, were also home to breweries that thrived for many years. Through more than 220 historic images, Brewing in Greater Pittsburgh looks at the most prominent brewers in the Greater Pittsburgh area, covering Allegheny, Beaver, Westmoreland, and other neighboring counties.

Author Ryan C. Brown details the harrowing days of the Great Steel Strike of 1919 that rocked Pittsburgh and its seemingly impregnable “principality of steel.”

In 1919, the steel industry of Pittsburgh was on the brink of war. Years of labor strife broke out into open conflict as steel workers launched the biggest strike to date in the United States, paralyzing mills from Youngstown to Johnstown and beyond. Radical unionists, anarchists and Bolshevik sympathizers set bombs, planned for revolution and fought police in violent battles. As the postwar Red Scare began to sweep the nation, federal agents used the strikes as an excuse to comb Pittsburgh’s immigrant neighborhoods looking for communists.

Wilmerding and the Westinghouse Air Brake Company tells the story of a town and company that grew up hand in hand through historical images.

When George Westinghouse Jr. founded the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, his air brakes, railroad equipment, and industrial pneumatic devices revolutionized rail travel, opening a new chapter in American industrial history. Not only were the products of his first company revolutionary, but the small borough he founded in 1890 in southwestern Pennsylvania became a model for residential and industrial development. Wilmerding, precisely planned and built according to Westinghouse's specifications, would house the workers-skilled and unskilled, black and white-who would produce George Westinghouse's air brake. Wilmerding and the Westinghouse Air Brake Company tells the story of a town and company that grew up hand in hand. This collection of historical photographs, drawn from the archive of the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, shows how the citizens of Wilmerding lived-from the factories where they worked everyday to the Castle, where they bowled and swam. See the Victorian-style homes where they lived with their families, the park where they strolled, and the company band they heard at concerts and parades. Learn about the industry-changing products they produced and sold globally. Wilmerding and the Westinghouse Air Brake Company is an American story of a man and his vision-how he and the town he founded changed the face of rail travel and industry.

The Stroudsburgs in the Poconos is a fascinating, pictorial history of this diverse community.

Nestled in the foothills of the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania are the twin towns of Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg. Discover the history, people, and places of this community in an unprecedented collection of images. Authors and local historians Marie and Frank Summa have compiled fascinating images with a carefully researched and informative text to tell the story of the Stroudsburgs and the Poconos from the time of the Native Americans through the mid-1950s. Known first as Dansbury, in honor of Daniel Brodhead, the settlement later became known as Stroudsburg, in honor of Jacob Stroud. The Stroudsburgs endured and prospered throughout war, fire, and flood. Its inhabitants included Abraham Lincoln's substitute in the Civil War, a veteran of five wars who became a parish priest, and an attorney general of the United States. The lives andindustries of ordinary citizens as well as these unique and colorful figures of the past are depicted. Images were provided through community loans and local historicalsocieties to produce this timeless tribute to the history of the Stroudsburgs in the Poconos.

From early homesteads to coke ovens to Lake Forest Park and the YMCA,  journey through over 200 years of Scottsdale and Everson's history in this photographic tale.

Prior to the Great Depression, coal mines and coke ovens made Scottdale the wealthiest community in Westmoreland County. Once part of a region that was known as the world's largest producer of metallurgical coke, the area's prosperity created a thriving business district on the road to Pittsburgh, lined Chestnut Street with elegant Victorian mansions, and provided a home for a baseball farm team affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals. Immigrants from Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean joined earlier Scotch Irish and German settlers to create a rich cultural heritage. Around Scottdale and Everson celebrates this ethnic diversity. Pictured within are views of early homesteads, coke ovens, mills, and places where residents lived, shopped, worshiped, and played, including Lake Forest Park and the YMCA. Although recent economic growth shifted to nearby interstate highways, Scottdale and Everson occupy a strategic gateway to the Laurel Highlands, which promises to attract new immigrants preferring to live near open spaces and in neighborhoods without strangers.

“A compelling narrative that moves crisply through the murder, the lynching, and the cover-up by silence that local residents thereafter affected.”—The Journal of American History

On a warm August night in 1911, Zachariah Walker was lynched—burned alive—by an angry mob on the outskirts of Coatesville, a prosperous Pennsylvania steel town. At the time of his very public murder, Walker, an African American millworker, was under arrest for the shooting and killing of a respected local police officer. Investigated by the NAACP, the horrific incident garnered national and international attention. Despite this scrutiny, a conspiracy of silence shrouded the events, and the accused men and boys were found not guilty at trial. More than 100 years after the lynching, authors Dennis B. Downey and Raymond M. Hyser bring new insight to events that rocked a community.

Much like the rest of the nation, South Central Pennsylvania struggled with slavery. The institution lingered locally for more than fifty years, although it was virtually extinct everywhere else within Pennsylvania.

Gradually, anti-slavery views prevailed. The Appalachian Mountains and the Susquehanna River provided natural cover for fleeing slaves, causing an influx of travel along the Underground Railroad. Locals like William Wright and James McAllister assisted these runaways while publicly advocating to abolish slavery. Historian Cooper Wingert reveals the struggles between slavery and abolition in South Central Pennsylvania.

Discover Chester County's Lost Landmarks/

Chester County has a deep and enriching history, from sites of the Underground Railroad to great moments of Women's Suffrage and incredible remnants of Native American culture. The stories of the county's past can be experienced in many of its historic landmarks. Author Mark DeWitt Lanyon charts Chester County's lost history and the places that defined it.

From its days as a small village named Bucktown to its 150th anniversary in 2012, the borough of Dunmore is more than just a suburb of Scranton.

Boasting an ethnically diverse population and several of the best schools in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Dunmore has come a long way since changing its name from Bucktown in the hope of receiving financial assistance that never came. Fortunately for Dunmore, the town’s fate was secured when the Pennsylvania Coal Company arrived in the mid-1800s, turning it into a diverse and thriving community center. Using vintage photographs, Images of America: Dunmoreaims to celebrate not just the town’s history, but also its people. The photographs depict lives of earlier generations who share one thing in common with their modern counterparts: their pride in their hometown.

Mt. Lebanon depicts the interesting and engaging history of this community.

From the mid-1700s to the early 1900s, farming was the principal occupation in the area that would become Mt. Lebanon. When the federal government placed an excise tax on whiskey in 1794, area farmers protested in what became known as the Whiskey Rebellion. The 1901 arrival of the streetcar began transforming the area from a rural countryside to a modern suburban community. Within a few months of the streetcar's arrival, the first real estate subdivision, the Mt. Lebanon Plan, was laid out, and by 1905, no less than 11 subdivisions had been approved. When the Liberty Tunnels opened in 1924, Mt. Lebanon's population exploded, and the community became a premier example of the modern automobile suburb.

Penn State University was founded in 1855. Then known as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, the 400-acre campus had only one main building.

With almost 100,000 current students (including students at the Commonwealth Campuses) and having the largest dues-paying alumni association in the world, Penn State continues to be a world leader in education. Since its founding, picture postcards have been published to showcase the buildings and highlight the student activities while documenting the school's narrative.

The Mid Mon Valley celebrates the interesting history of this Pennsylvania community through a collection of striking postcards from the twentieth century.

As the Monongahela River snakes north into Pennsylvania, it twists into horseshoe bends and has few straight stretches. Tucked into these curves are a series of small towns that represent America at its best. The river, which is one hundred and twenty-eight miles long, is divided into regions by local residents, and the mid section encompassing the communities of Brownsville, California, Belle Vernon, Charleroi, Monessen, Donora, and Monongahela is known as the Mid Mon Valley. What unites this region, in addition to a common landscape and common architecture, is a heritage of ethnic pride, industrial achievement, and championship sports teams. The Mid Mon Valley celebrates this history through a collection of striking postcards from the twentieth century.

Explore the fascinating history of Bradford, Pennsylvania with more than 200 vintage photographs and anecdotes from the locals who experienced it.

Around Bradford Volume II further looks at the history of the area as it has not been seen before. Once one of the largest cities in Pennsylvania, Bradford relied heavily on oil production in the 1880s for its success.

Author Sally Ryan Costik allows us to glimpse into the Age of Innocence at the turn of the century before she endeavors to examine the city's own tumultuous past. In the 1920s, it was home to KKK activity, gangster slayings, and mob retaliation––events that contrast sharply with the images of Sunday school, industrial growth, and high society from Millionaires Row found in this collection. In the years following the Roaring Twenties, Costik takes a unique look at the Depression era through the eyes of sports fans. She chronicles Bradford's baseball team through the decade as they played within the PONY league circuit (comprised of Pennsylvania, Ontario, and New York). No history of Bradford would be complete without giving mention to the Bradfordians who supported the war effort on the home front.

Philadelphia, as laid out in the 1680s, extended from the Delaware River to the Schuylkill River and from Vine Street to South Street, an area known today as Center City.

As its population grew, the settled areas expanded westward from the Delaware River beyond early important landmarks such as Christ Church, the Pennsylvania State House, and Pennsylvania Hospital. By the mid-19th century, commercial, religious, and cultural institutions arose along Broad Street, and exclusive residential neighborhoods developed even farther west in areas previously undeveloped or used as industrial sites. Bustling shopping districts anchored by stores such as Wanamaker's Grand Depot and Strawbridge and Clothier ran for blocks along Chestnut and Market Streets. Center City Philadelphia in the 19th Century highlights the buildings, people, and activities of this area from the 1840s until the end of the century.

Take a glimpse at one of America's best loved companies and a study in how to do the common thing uncommonly well.

In 1869, the American diet was a dreary affair. Kitchen staples included bread, potatoes, other root vegetables, and meat. Tomatoes–then called love apples–were an exotic fruit. A young 25-year-old Henry J. Heinz helped to change all of that. He established his company based on a single premise: quality. He demonstrated this commitment by bottling his first product, grated horseradish, in clear glass jars to showcase its purity. From his hometown near Pittsburgh, Heinz sparked a revolution. A colorful marketing genius, he was a foresighted entrepreneur whose peripatetic travels birthed the global H. J. Heinz Company, which today is the most international of all United States–based food companies. H. J. Heinz Company contains vintage images from the archives of one of America's first industrial photography studios. It captures memorable and creative marketing from the 57 Varieties to today and features photography of many current initiatives in Heinz's main businesses of ketchup and sauces, meals and snacks, and infant foods.

In 1682, William Penn offered the Free Society of Traders a nearly twenty-thousand-acre tract of land made up from the then communities of Warwick, New Britain, and Hilltown. The area grew slowly and, in 1745, William Doyle applied for permission to operate an inn at a well-traveled crossroads. With the permission granted, Doyle's town was created. Spared destructive battles of the American Revolution, the town retained its rustic charm and appeal. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Doylestown, as it had become known, had blossomed and was beginning to attract merchants and residents. It spent the next century somewhat in isolation until wealthy Philadelphians and New Yorkers discovered the borough in the 1930s, boasting of its abundant, beautiful, land and rich history. Doylestown is the first collection of images to document the history of the seat of Bucks County. The images contained in this collection were gathered primarily from local residents who, upon hearing of the pending publication, came forth with troves of photographs, stories, and memories of their hometown. Truly a community effort, Doylestown is a unique compilation of a storied past, a spirited present, and an exciting future.

The area grew slowly and, in 1745, William Doyle applied for permission to operate an inn at a well-traveled crossroads. With the consent granted, Doyle's town was created. Spared destructive battles of the American Revolution, the town retained its rustic charm and appeal. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Doylestown, as it had become known, had blossomed and was beginning to attract merchants and residents. It spent the next century somewhat in isolation until wealthy Philadelphians and New Yorkers discovered the borough in the 1930s, boasting of its abundant, beautiful, land and rich history. Doylestown is the first collection of images to document the history of the seat of Bucks County. The images contained in this collection were gathered primarily from local residents who, upon hearing of the pending publication, came forth with troves of photographs, stories, and memories of their hometown. Truly a community effort, Doylestown is a unique compilation of a storied past, a spirited present, and an exciting future.

Indiana, Pennsylvania is a compilation of stunning photographs that reveal a historical community. Included in this valuable history are the secret connections to the Underground Railroad, the arrival of electricity and telephones, the first automobiles, and the last Civil War veteran. Indiana, Pennsylvania also features many parts of the borough that have vanished, such as Indiana's early buildings and most of the old downtown hotels.

This colorful history of Pocono Mountain town Honesdale describes its beginning as a transport hub for coal, as well as its illustrious citizens.

Honesdale, Pennsylvania, nestled in the Pocono Mountains, is known for its picturesque views and colorful people. Named after Philip Hone, mayor of New York City and president of the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company, the area formerly known as Dyberry Forks was selected as the site to transport anthracite coal from the Wyoming Valley to New York City by gravity railroad and canal. Honesdale is the home of the Stourbridge Lion, the first locomotive to run on commercial tracks in the Western Hemisphere. Helping to shape Honesdale were such notable people as songwriter Dick Smith, five-star general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Lemnitzer, artist Jennie Brownscombe, and authors Homer Greene and Washington Irving. Honesdale is noted for having the world's smallest Jewish temple, and during the canal days, it had the world's largest stockpile of coal.

Join author Richard Gazarik as he reveals the wicked history of the Steel City.

Muckraking journalist Walter Liggett dubbed Pittsburgh the Metropolis of Corruption in 1930 when he reported the city had more vice per square foot than New York, Detroit, Cleveland or Boston. Decades earlier, the Magee-Flinn political machine ruled public officials, and crooked police helped racketeers protect brothels and gambling dens. Mayor (later Governor) David Lawrence was indicted several times for graft but acquitted each time. Even Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. colluded with gangsters, according to FBI reports.

Newtown has a rich heritage that is abundant with historic charm, a three-century-long growth founded on deep agricultural roots with a notable role in American history.

Once a busy commercial and cultural center, Newtown served as the county seat of Bucks County from 1726 to 1813. It was within this community the shots of British raiding parties resounded off homes and businesses, and from this small town on Christmas morning in 1776, General George Washington marched from his headquarters to join the Battle of Trenton. Over the succeeding years, Newton quietly transformed back into the pastoral town it had once been. Despite the many changes the town has seen, traces of this historic past remain still. From the archives of the Newtown Historic Association, Historic Newtown offers the reader a unique opportunity to see everyday life in this rural community as it was at the beginning of the 20th century. Within these photographs are many rare and never before published glimpses into the past of one of the oldest and most historic towns in Pennsylvania.

Frackville, Pennsylvania, is a perfect community for exploring the identity of small-town America.

This borough is representative of the many struggles American citizens and immigrants had to overcome in the mid-nineteenth through the twentieth century on their way to success. Even though Frackville's men and women possess a tremendous drive for progress, they have not forgotten the sacrifices made by earlier generations that have helped shape them and create the area in which they live. This volume looks back on the borough's history and retells the fascinating stories of its original families and early settlers, like the Fracks and the Merediths, and traces Frackville's growth and development from its incorporation in 1876 to its centennial celebration in 1976. With over 200 images, many never before published, this collection shows the reader buildings and homes, some now demolished, lining dusty roads and peopled with citizens in antiquated hats or dresses, and even presents pictures of more recent generations participating in the centennial parade.

The author of Steel tells the story of strikes and violent unrest amid the mines and mills of twentieth-century Pennsylvania and Ohio—includes photos.

As the twentieth century dawned on western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, the region’s steel industry faced a struggle for unionism. The industry was plagued by disasters that killed and maimed countless workers, many of them impoverished immigrants from Ireland, Hungary, and other nations—in 1906 alone, more than four hundred workers died in steel plant accidents.

In response, unionists like Philip Murray, John L. Lewis, Samuel Gompers, and Gus Hall began to battle for fair wages, hours, and working conditions. Managers like Judge Elbert Gary and Tom Girdler opposed their every move. Tensions from issues of immigration, class, skill, and race erupted throughout the industry.

The tribulations led to widespread steel strikes directed by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers and the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, and a war that killed scores and injured thousands. In this book, industrial relations expert Dale Richard Perelman charts the struggle and decline of the nation’s most prominent regional steel industry.

Eerie Erie explores the dark and bizarre corners of this county's creepy history, from vampire crypts to phantom ships.

A tall creature that howls on the devil's backbone near Harbor Creek Township, phantom ships that erupt into flames and melt into darkness, UFOs on Presque Isle—these are some of the strange tales from the lakeshores and shadowy woods of Erie County, Pennsylvania. Local paranormal expert and author Reverend Robin S. Swope explores the dark and bizarre corners of the county's history, from the forgotten 1812 dead of the brig Niagara and the mysterious earthen mounds that dot the landscape to the legend of the ravenous Storm Hag and the rumored vampire's crypt in Erie Cemetery. Join Swope as he searches for answers in the lost pages of Erie County history and lore.

Navigate the treacherous waters of Lake Erie, Lake Huron and the Georgian Bay to discover the fates of  Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and his fleet.

Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's defeat of the British at the Battle of Lake Erie was a defining moment both in the War of 1812 and American naval history. Yet the story of Perry's fleet did not end there. Come aboard as author David Frew chronicles the years and decades after Perry's victory. Heroic acts and bitter defeats unfold as Frew details the lives of fleet surgeon Usher Parsons, shipwright Daniel Dobbins and fleet commander Oliver Hazard Perry and his successors. The adventure moves from the tribulations of Misery Bay and a crafty British victory in the Lake Huron Campaign to the closing of the naval base in Erie and the raising of the Niagara in the twentieth century. Navigate the treacherous waters of Lake Erie, Lake Huron and the Georgian Bay to discover the fates of Perry and his fleet.

Remembering two palaces of retail

For generations, Scranton’s two big department stores, The Globe Store and Oppenheim’s Scranton Dry Goods Company, affectionately known as “the Dry,” dominated retail in the Electric City. Facing each other on Wyoming Avenue, they created special memories for those who walked their sales floors with attractive displays, special events, community service and elaborate Christmas decorations. Many fondly recall the steamship round of beef carved to order at The Globe’s Charl-Mont Restaurant or waving to customers passing by on the escalator from the Dry’s mezzanine Tea Room. Together, the two stores brought the best the world had to offer to Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Join Scranton-area native Daniel J. Packer Jr. and step through the iconic revolving doors into a bygone era of shopping in grand style.

The Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame (PABHOF) was established in 1958 to honor the elite performers of the state’s boxing history. The first five-person class of inductees included ring legends Billy Conn, Harry Greb, Tommy Loughran, Philadelphia Jack O’Brien, and Lew Tendler. The PABHOF continued to induct outstanding participants of the sport who either hailed from the state or had an impact on the Pennsylvania boxing story. By 2023, the list of honorees numbered 438 and included champions, contenders, club fighters, trainers, managers, promoters, cutmen, and other key members of the boxing community.

John DiSanto is a boxing historian and writer. He coauthored the books Boxing in Atlantic City and Grace and Grit: Boxing at Shuler’s Gym. DiSanto, the founder and editor of PhillyBoxingHistory.com, is a New Jersey Boxing Hall of Famer and is the chairman of the PABHOF. For this work, he has compiled photographs and profiles of many noteworthy PABHOF members as well as a complete listing of every person inducted from 1958 to 2023. 

Columbia County was formed in 1813 and named for the mythic goddess Columbia, who represented the distinctively American qualities of the new nation in opposition to Britannia.

In an area of beautiful, fertile creek and river valleys nestled among high ridges, the county represents the best of rural America with its productive farms, idyllic small towns, and a variety of small-scale industries. Settled at first by Quakers, the villages and towns were later strengthened by Scotch-Irish, German, Italian, and eastern European immigrants. Agriculture was the principal pursuit at first and continues so, but the county developed many industries ranging from timbering in the north to production of canal boats, textiles, and railroad cars in towns along the Susquehanna River to mining of anthracite coal at the county's southern edge. The photographs in Early Columbia County, selected from the historical society's large collection, evoke the people and life of the towns in their heyday from 1870 to 1920, when each locality attained a distinctive character.

Mauch Chunk (Bear Mountain) was a boomtown gone bust by the mid 1900s, and came up with a unique way to change its fortunes via Olympian Jim Thorpe.

Jim Thorpe in the 20th Century examines the causes and effects of a community's decision to relinquish its Native American name Mauch Chunk (Bear Mountain) to become the town of Jim Thorpe. In the 19th century, Mauch Chunk rode a wave of prosperity, as coal shipping and tourism turned ordinary men into millionaires. In the 20th century, the mainstays of the town's economy began to tumble like dominoes: mule-drawn coal boats could not compete with the iron horse, ending Mauch Chunk's days as a canal town by 1922; the touristattracting Switchback Gravity Railroad, unable to afford parts, closed in 1932; the coal mines and working railroads collapsed, as industry, home heating, and trucking turned to petroleum. Down-and-out by the mid-1900s, Mauch Chunk was looking for a means of saving itself when the widow of 1912 Olympian Jim Thorpe proposed a stranger-than-fiction solution.

Along the Perkiomen provides a glimpse of the Perkiomen region's rich an interesting history.

The Perkiomen Creek is a picturesque stream that drains a major portion of western Montgomery County. It begins just beyond the northern borders of the county and travels south. The creek empties into the Schuylkill River at the county's lower border. The old Perkiomen Railroad closely followed the same path. Along the Perkiomen showcases postcards of the Perkiomen Valley in Montgomery County as it existed during the first half of the twentieth century. Readers will visit the villages and towns along the creek and others nearby. This visual journey is intended to provide a glimpse of the Perkiomen region's rich history.