Jim Thorpe
By Kathryn Finegan Clark
At first the Lenni Lenapes called it Mauch Chunk, which in their language means “sleeping bear;” That’s what they thought the mountains encircling the village resembled.
Although the borough is now the seat of Carbon County and renamed Jim Thorpe, it appears the Indian name was more prophetic than not: the sleeping bear of a town has sprung to life once again.
Whatever its name, the town has seen its glories and its ghosts, its millionaires and murderers. During the Golden Age of Railroads, Mauch Chunk was considered “The Switzerland of America.” It drew visitors from Europe as well as summer tourists.
It helped, of course, that Mauch Chunk’s “first citizen,” Asa Packer, owned the railroad tracks. Packer, a philanthropist who owned the Lehigh Valley Railroad and founded Lehigh University, had amassed his fortune building canal barges to transport coal in addition to his railroad and mining enterprises.
Packer’s riches grew steadily, and so did the town, which attracted other movers and shakers. In 1870 Packer converted his trains from hauling coal to passenger service. Tourists then began boarding daily excursion trains at New York City’s Penn Station and descending on the picturesque little town nestled in the mountains.
For a while, the town was the wealthiest in America, boasting 50 men whose personal fortunes topped $50,000, equal to about $1 million today. They built handsome homes in the many styles popular in the Victorian Age.
With the double whammy of the Great Depression and World War II, the decline in mining and railroading sent Mauch Chunk’s fortunes downhill, and its energy and its economy fizzled.
It is now again, nearly 200 years after its founding, a Tourist Destination (capital letters intended). Visitors climb the sidewalks of its steep streets, trek through antique shops and historic sites, dine in its historic restaurants and stand in line to buy tickets for shows at the Mauch Chunk Opera House or for train rides.
They tour the Old Jail Museum to gawk at the mysterious handprint of a prisoner who implanted it on the wall of his cell as he was taken to the gallows, still proclaiming his innocence. He was one of seven rebellious coal miners known as the Molly Maguires, who were executed in the late 1870s.
Tourists stay overnight or spend weekends in resurrected hotels and bed-and-breakfast inns-once private homes-along Broadway, also called Millionaires Row.
Hungry tourists can choose a slice of pizza or a hamburger or they can go for English high tea at the Albright Mansion to Continental and Irish fare in the Emerald Restaurant at the Inn at Jim Thorpe.
High season runs from Memorial Day through Halloween, but winter sports enthusiasts keep the town bustling when temperatures plunge and the mountains turn icy blue. There’s an Old Time Christmas Celebration as well as a Winterfest complete with ice carvings.
But Jim Thorpe is at its best in October with its annual Fall Foliage Celebration. This year it begins on October 10 and continues for three weekends with free music all over town; and vendors, crafters and food downtown at Josiah White Park; train rides into the mountains to see fall foliage and the Switchback Scamper, a 10K run and walk on October 18. The celebration ends October 31 with the Third Annual Grand Slambovian Hillbilly Pirates Ball at the Opera House.
Attempting to bring life back to the sleepy town after the Great Depression and World War II, residents voted to change its name to Jim Thorpe in 1954 to honor the Olympic medal-winner athlete called the greatest athlete in the world. Disgusted with his native Oklahoma’s refusal to honor her late husband and impressed with Mauch Chunk’s efforts to regain its footing, Thorpe’s widow had his body moved to a red marble memorial just outside town.
Then things started to happen.
Two years later, the Asa Packer Mansion was opened to the public. On Packer Hill, rising high above the Old Mauch Chunk Historic District, stands the impressive Victorian mansion. It took two years in the early 1860s to construct Packer’s handsome, three-story home with its landmark red tin roof and 18 rooms. The mansion was left to the borough in 1912 by Packer’s daughter as a memorial to him. Shuttered for about half a century, it was finally opened to the public in 1956 by the Jim Thorpe Lions Club.
The interior of this house-museum has remained unchanged for nearly a century. The crystal chandelier in its west parlor was copied for the filming of “Gone with the Wind.” It is one of eight Jim Thorpe buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Next door is the mansion Packer built for his son Harry in 1874. Now a bed-and-breakfast, it was used as the model for Disney World’s Haunted Mansion and now conducts Murder Mystery Weekends constructed around the Packer millions. Tourists may check out the Mauch Chunk Museum, or join any number of town tours, architectural and historical-and even ghost walks.
Asa Packer had a hand in building the Gothic-style St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on Race Street with its Italian marble altar and Tiffany windows. Historic Stone Row, also on Race Street, consists of 16 row houses built by Packer for his Lehigh Valley Railroad engineers and foremen. Some of the homes are now shops or restaurants.
The Visitor Center, appropriately enough, is situated in the old train station. Kids of all ages love the Old Mauch Chunk Model Train display. It features 13 mainlines along with more than 1,000 feet of track.
Tourists then can move from models to reality and ride the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway. It’s a 16-mile round trip along the Lehigh River as it twists and turns through the forest into Lehigh Gorge State Park with its steep cliffs. Hikers and bikers follow the trail next to it, while people in rafts splash on the river far below.
Promoters are also hoping to re-create a portion of the Switchback Gravity Railroad, built in 1827, to haul coal from the mines at Summit Hill to the Lehigh Canal in Mauch Chunk. By the 1850s, it was offering thrilling downhill rides for 50 cents and was considered the first roller coaster in the country.
For outdoors-y types, just outside town is the 350-acre Mauch Chunk Lake Park, which offers boating, fishing, swimming and camping. The park also has hiking trails, cross-country skiing and ice fishing spots as well as an environmental center.
Check out the charms of this nearby town that was America’s wealthiest in the 1850s when coal and railroads reigned. It retains its natural beauty and its architectural jewels and is seeing new life as a magnet for tourists.
