Jim Thorpe aka Mauch Chunk

Tucked away and protected by the dramatic folds of several steep mountains, the town of Jim Thorpe sits quietly on the banks of the Lehigh River and looks much as it did 150 years ago, when carriages clattered down its streets, train cars chugged along its steel rails, and barges floated down its river. Coal was King back then, and it was one of most prosperous mining transportation towns in the country.

Originally named Mauch Chunk (an Indian name for ‘sleeping bear’), the town was the site of America’s 2nd railroad, the Switchback Gravity Railroad, which was built in 1827 to transport coal from the mines. Years later, the railroad drew thousands of tourists who loved riding the railcars up and down the area’s steep hills. In the 19th-century, Mauch Chunk was second only to Niagara Falls as a tourist destination.

The town’s fortunes dwindled with the advent of oil consumption and the Depression. Town leaders changed the name of the town to Jim Thorpe in 1954, in the hope of reviving the tourist trade, and interred the body of the Greatest Athlete in the World on the east side of town, where his mausoleum stands today.

Today the coal barons and miners are long gone, but Jim Thorpe’s charming Victorian architecture and its quaint streets remain, echoing the spirit of a town that was once, and still is, thriving and lively.