Railroads
Railroads came early to the Lehigh Valley for only one reason: anthracite coal. For iron to be smelted productively in the modern furnaces of the 1840s on, enormous amounts of coal needed to be brought to the furnaces. The iron ore was found throughout this area. Coal was carried in canal boats at first, but much greater quantities could be carried year-round and more reliably on railways.
The Lehigh Valley’s first railroads were “anthracite railways,” built primarily to carry anthracite, but also passengers and other freight. Some were chartered but never completed. One of these was the Allentown Railroad; it would have come directly through the tract now occupied by Hamilton Crossings on its route from Auburn to Allentown. It was sponsored by the Philadelphia and Reading RR, with the purpose of carrying Schuylkill County anthracite to the east. The grading was completed and some bridge piers and abutments built when work stopped after the Panic of 1857.
The Allentown Railroad was to compete with the East Pennsylvania Railroad, which was completed in 1859. Instead of resuming work on the Allentown RR when economic conditions improved, in 1869 the P&R leased the East Pennsylvania for 999 years. Iron furnaces were built in the communities of Topton, Alburtis, Macungie, and Emmaus along the tracks of the East Pennsylvania branch, using anthracite from the Schuylkill mines, and iron ore and limestone from local mines and quarries. The tracks remain a significant railroad corridor, now operated by Norfolk Southern.
The Catasauqua and Fogelsville Railroad, of which some remnants remain in operation, was constructed to bring raw materials to furnaces in Lehigh County. The section that connected to the East Pennsylvania line in Alburtis was completed in 1864. Passenger trains ran between Alburtis and Catasauqua until as late as 1935.
Trolleys
The Allentown and Reading Traction Company was known as “the Dorney Park Line.” Service began in 1899 from Center Square, Allentown, to Dorney Park then through Wescosville, East Texas and Trexlertown and into Berks County. It was heavily patronized, especially between Allentown and Dorney Park. The trolley company purchased the amusement park in 1901. Buses replaced trolleys in 1936.
The largest trolley system in the Lehigh Valley was the Lehigh Valley Transit Company. In 1899 service was extended from Emmaus through East Macungie and into the borough of Macungie, where it ended at the Continental Hotel near the railroad station. The line to Macungie was closed in 1929, and the company ended all service in 1953.
Along the Line of the Allentown to Kutztown Trolley
by Ann Bartholomew
We all know that Dorney Park and Central Park were developed as amusement parks by trolley lines, but how many know that the Iglesia de Dios property off Brookside Road, near Bethany Church, was also at one time a trolley park?
In 1898, when the route of the Allentown-Kutztown Trolley Company’s trolley line was being planned and property was being acquired for the right of way, groves were in fashion for events and “picnics” held by Sunday Schools, churches, families, and by businesses for employee outings. A group that wanted to enjoy some fresh air out in the countryside had many places to choose from.
The trolley line, which eventually became the AllentownReading Traction Company, ran from Center Square in Allentown westward along Walnut Street to Cedar Creek and from there to Dorney Park, Cedarbrook (“the poorhouse”), and up Cedarbrook Road to Wescosville. Many of these roads from Dorney Park to Wescosville can no longer be followed. From Wescosville, trolleys ran down the center of Main Street (Hamilton Boulevard) as far as Brookside Road, then swung south and followed the west side of Brookside. The tracks headed west again where the driveway into the Iglesia de Dios grounds are today. In the village of East Texas the line ran over private land offered by Dr. Albert Miller and his neighbor, William Poh, as an inducement to the trolley company to come through their village. (Dr. Miller later used the trolley to ship produce, primarily peaches from his orchard, using the easternmost of the three trolley stops in the village.) The line went to the rear of the present park and across Lower Macungie Road, staying on the south side of the road as far as Church Lane. At the western end of Church Lane it crossed over the tracks of the old Catasauqua and Fogelsville Railroad on a trestle adjacent to the road.
The line was started during 1898. Management problems stopped construction beyond Wescoesville in the fall, and some believed the line would end there. However, in the spring of 1899 a new superintendent was hired, the right of way from Wescosville to Trexlertown through East Texas was staked off, and on May 8 work started on building the roadbed. Just the previous week the trolley company had purchased twenty-two acres from C.A. Dorney. Solomon Dorney had started to develop this land into popular picnic grounds with fishing among its various attractions by the 1870s; its name remained Dorney Park after the trolley company purchased it.
Grading from Wescosville to East Texas was completed in early June of 1899, and by the end of the month groups were already planning to rent Amandes Romich’s “fine, clean and well-shaded wooded tract, adjoining the trolley track at a distance of only three or four blocks from Wescosville.”
On August 9, 1899, The Allentown Democrat noted in its weekly column about Wescosville happenings that “the Kutztown trolley road has been finished and brought in condition for travel as far as Romig’s pic nic and camp meeting woods, midway between Wescoesville and East Texas, and the cars can now run to that point.” And just in time, for the Evangelicals of the Allentown District had already made plans for a camp meeting “in Romich’s Woods, on Chapparral Ridge,” starting on August 9. The ridge is clearly marked on the 1876 map of Lower Macungie in our museum.
With the advent of the trolley, any grove or picnic ground along its route instantly became the most popular choice for events. No longer was there a need to manage a large group, probably of all ages and often carrying sports supplies and food baskets, walking from the closest trolley stop to the picnic site—now they could step off the trolley and be at their destination almost immediately.
The trolley company leased Romig’s woods, also called Romig’s Grove, for ten years and advertised the site as one of the finest in the county for Sunday School picnics, social parties, and camp meetings. Camp meetings, originally outdoor religious gatherings, were held throughout the summer by churches and Sunday schools. The first camp meetings scheduled were for the Bowman Evangelicals and the United Brethren from Allentown. Each lasted for an entire week in early and late August. At first, tents were erected to accommodate those attending. A baptismal service, with baptism in the nearby Little Lehigh Creek, was offered by the United Brethren the afternoon before the camp closed.
By the 1900 summer season Romig’s Grove was renamed Fairview Grove or Fairview Park, and appears to have been purchased by the trolley company. Improvements were underway, including drilling an artesian well for fresh water. Unfortunately, the first well had to be abandoned at 80 feet because the drill struck a rock and was knocked askew.
The grove was not used only for camp meetings. On the afternoon and evening of July 20, 1901, for example, the Wescosville Union Sunday School held a large old-fashioned picnic, where old and young could enjoy “a day of innocent recreation.” A good band, all the usual amusements at openair festivals, and booths where food could be purchased.
From the opening of the trolley line in 1899 until the fall of 1903 the fare between Allentown and East Texas was five cents. Villagers were greatly upset when the fare doubled— this was a substantial increase at the time. The trolley company began to offer a special excursion fare of five cents to those coming to the grove for camp meetings.
The Emmanuel Grove Camp Meeting Association, led by Rev. B.F.M. Fahl of Allentown’s Twelfth Street Baptist Church, purchased the grove in late 1908. They built an auditorium to accommodate 1,000, and 100 cottages, each with two rooms, a porch, four windows, and a front and rear door. Concrete walkways were planned. A church or organization using the grove did not have to pay except for the cottages, which were $3.50 each for the entire time of the rental.
In May 1909, The Morning Call reported that Pastor Fahl was in charge of the laborers and mechanics working on the cottages. At least one other pastor with the same name was involved. Rev. Joseph Fahl of the Macungie Baptist Church, who was also a workman on the site, preached a sermon in English on “The Ascension of Christ” on opening day of the camp meeting on May 20, 1909.
Out in the forest of chestnut trees that used to be known as Fairview Grove, along the Allentown and Reading trolley line, beyond Wescoesville, there has sprung up a village that during this summer will be the centre of the religious life of a large body of Allentown people. The grove has been renamed “Emmanuel Grove” by the members of the Twelfth Street Baptist Church who now own it and who have spent much time and money and exerted much work and thought in planning and arranging a model camp-meeting grove. With this work virtually completed, there was a happy gathering of men and women out at the grove yesterday in attendance at the first meeting to be held, Ascension Day being appropriately chosen for this event. (Morning Call, 21 May 1909)
When further improvements were made in 1912 and the cottages repainted, each one was given a biblical name. Today, probably by coincidence, all the streets in the residential subdivision closest to the grove also have biblical names.
The camp-meeting association continued to offer Emmanuel Grove to any denomination that wanted to use its facilities (newspaper reports suggest most users were Baptist congregations) until the late 1920s. Then, in 1929, the grove was sold to the Eastern Pennsylvania conference of Seventh-Day Adventists, which had over 2,000 members in fifty churches. The first major improvement on the approximately thirteenacre tract was to build a new vegetarian kitchen and an enlarged dining room, big enough to serve 500 at one time— with no flesh meats of any kind served.
The grove seems not to have been offered for rent to others after the Seventh-Day Adventists bought it. Large numbers of church members were now coming from a wide area for meetings, and a large new wood and steel pavilion, 100 by 175 feet, was built in 1939.
Trolley service ended on October 19, 1933, and was replaced the next day by bus service provided by the Allentown-Reading Transit Company, the successor to the Allentown-Reading Traction Company. Buses were used on the old trolley route until 1942 or 1943.
A major fire destroyed the pavilion in 1966, at this time owned by the Pennsylvania Conference of Seventh Day Adventists, which had been formed in 1964 by a merger of the eastern and western conferences. Inadequate electrical wiring was found to be the cause. Local fire fighters were able to save the cottages by keeping them wet. In February 1968 another fire damaged a number of the cottages, and a third one in April 1968 did major damage, destroying fourteen cottages and damaging others. The grounds had not been used for any large meetings for several years by this time.
In October 1970, Calvary Temple in Allentown bought the park and renamed it Calvary Jubilee Park. The park continued to be a place for religious gatherings and celebrations, with concerts, revival crusades, and activities of all kinds for young and old. Among the evangelists and singers brought in for special events in 1977 was Buffalo Bill Carson, a bornagain Christian with a straight-shooting message. During the same time period, the mid-1970s, Calvary Temple was expanding and built a large new church on Winchester Drive in South Whitehall Township.
The Church of God, a Pentecostalist church serving primarily Spanish-speaking members, purchased the grove site in 1985 from Calvary Temple and used it for a summer retreat for the church’s northeast Spanish district and innercity children. Iglisia de Dios was then moving from place to place in Allentown, renting vacant buildings or space from other churches until it bought the former Trinity Evangelical Congregational Church at 10th and Linden streets in 2002. The church added two dormitories and two single-family homes for staff at Jubilee Park. The park continues to be used as church offices and for meetings.
Today the former local beauty spot is for sale once more.
In 1900, trolley mail service was authorized between Allentown and Kutztown, replacing the “star route” (a con‐ tracted delivery route) that had been in place for many years. The number of deliveries each way doubled from a single one daily, and the speed of moving mail between Allentown and Kutztown, which had been six hours each way, was reduced to ninety minutes.
LMTHS Newsletter Spring 2018 pages 6-7
© Copyright Lower Macungie Township Historical Society2018
Railroads came early to the Lehigh Valley for only one reason: anthracite coal. For iron to be smelted productively in the modern furnaces of the 1840s on, enormous amounts of coal needed to be brought to the furnaces. The iron ore was found throughout this area. Coal was carried in canal boats at first, but much greater quantities could be carried year-round and more reliably on railways.
The Lehigh Valley’s first railroads were “anthracite railways,” built primarily to carry anthracite, but also passengers and other freight. Some were chartered but never completed. One of these was the Allentown Railroad; it would have come directly through the tract now occupied by Hamilton Crossings on its route from Auburn to Allentown. It was sponsored by the Philadelphia and Reading RR, with the purpose of carrying Schuylkill County anthracite to the east. The grading was completed and some bridge piers and abutments built when work stopped after the Panic of 1857.
The Allentown Railroad was to compete with the East Pennsylvania Railroad, which was completed in 1859. Instead of resuming work on the Allentown RR when economic conditions improved, in 1869 the P&R leased the East Pennsylvania for 999 years. Iron furnaces were built in the communities of Topton, Alburtis, Macungie, and Emmaus along the tracks of the East Pennsylvania branch, using anthracite from the Schuylkill mines, and iron ore and limestone from local mines and quarries. The tracks remain a significant railroad corridor, now operated by Norfolk Southern.
The Catasauqua and Fogelsville Railroad, of which some remnants remain in operation, was constructed to bring raw materials to furnaces in Lehigh County. The section that connected to the East Pennsylvania line in Alburtis was completed in 1864. Passenger trains ran between Alburtis and Catasauqua until as late as 1935.
Trolleys
The Allentown and Reading Traction Company was known as “the Dorney Park Line.” Service began in 1899 from Center Square, Allentown, to Dorney Park then through Wescosville, East Texas and Trexlertown and into Berks County. It was heavily patronized, especially between Allentown and Dorney Park. The trolley company purchased the amusement park in 1901. Buses replaced trolleys in 1936.
The largest trolley system in the Lehigh Valley was the Lehigh Valley Transit Company. In 1899 service was extended from Emmaus through East Macungie and into the borough of Macungie, where it ended at the Continental Hotel near the railroad station. The line to Macungie was closed in 1929, and the company ended all service in 1953.
Along the Line of the Allentown to Kutztown Trolley
by Ann Bartholomew
We all know that Dorney Park and Central Park were developed as amusement parks by trolley lines, but how many know that the Iglesia de Dios property off Brookside Road, near Bethany Church, was also at one time a trolley park?
In 1898, when the route of the Allentown-Kutztown Trolley Company’s trolley line was being planned and property was being acquired for the right of way, groves were in fashion for events and “picnics” held by Sunday Schools, churches, families, and by businesses for employee outings. A group that wanted to enjoy some fresh air out in the countryside had many places to choose from.
The trolley line, which eventually became the AllentownReading Traction Company, ran from Center Square in Allentown westward along Walnut Street to Cedar Creek and from there to Dorney Park, Cedarbrook (“the poorhouse”), and up Cedarbrook Road to Wescosville. Many of these roads from Dorney Park to Wescosville can no longer be followed. From Wescosville, trolleys ran down the center of Main Street (Hamilton Boulevard) as far as Brookside Road, then swung south and followed the west side of Brookside. The tracks headed west again where the driveway into the Iglesia de Dios grounds are today. In the village of East Texas the line ran over private land offered by Dr. Albert Miller and his neighbor, William Poh, as an inducement to the trolley company to come through their village. (Dr. Miller later used the trolley to ship produce, primarily peaches from his orchard, using the easternmost of the three trolley stops in the village.) The line went to the rear of the present park and across Lower Macungie Road, staying on the south side of the road as far as Church Lane. At the western end of Church Lane it crossed over the tracks of the old Catasauqua and Fogelsville Railroad on a trestle adjacent to the road.
The line was started during 1898. Management problems stopped construction beyond Wescoesville in the fall, and some believed the line would end there. However, in the spring of 1899 a new superintendent was hired, the right of way from Wescosville to Trexlertown through East Texas was staked off, and on May 8 work started on building the roadbed. Just the previous week the trolley company had purchased twenty-two acres from C.A. Dorney. Solomon Dorney had started to develop this land into popular picnic grounds with fishing among its various attractions by the 1870s; its name remained Dorney Park after the trolley company purchased it.
Grading from Wescosville to East Texas was completed in early June of 1899, and by the end of the month groups were already planning to rent Amandes Romich’s “fine, clean and well-shaded wooded tract, adjoining the trolley track at a distance of only three or four blocks from Wescosville.”
On August 9, 1899, The Allentown Democrat noted in its weekly column about Wescosville happenings that “the Kutztown trolley road has been finished and brought in condition for travel as far as Romig’s pic nic and camp meeting woods, midway between Wescoesville and East Texas, and the cars can now run to that point.” And just in time, for the Evangelicals of the Allentown District had already made plans for a camp meeting “in Romich’s Woods, on Chapparral Ridge,” starting on August 9. The ridge is clearly marked on the 1876 map of Lower Macungie in our museum.
With the advent of the trolley, any grove or picnic ground along its route instantly became the most popular choice for events. No longer was there a need to manage a large group, probably of all ages and often carrying sports supplies and food baskets, walking from the closest trolley stop to the picnic site—now they could step off the trolley and be at their destination almost immediately.
The trolley company leased Romig’s woods, also called Romig’s Grove, for ten years and advertised the site as one of the finest in the county for Sunday School picnics, social parties, and camp meetings. Camp meetings, originally outdoor religious gatherings, were held throughout the summer by churches and Sunday schools. The first camp meetings scheduled were for the Bowman Evangelicals and the United Brethren from Allentown. Each lasted for an entire week in early and late August. At first, tents were erected to accommodate those attending. A baptismal service, with baptism in the nearby Little Lehigh Creek, was offered by the United Brethren the afternoon before the camp closed.
By the 1900 summer season Romig’s Grove was renamed Fairview Grove or Fairview Park, and appears to have been purchased by the trolley company. Improvements were underway, including drilling an artesian well for fresh water. Unfortunately, the first well had to be abandoned at 80 feet because the drill struck a rock and was knocked askew.
The grove was not used only for camp meetings. On the afternoon and evening of July 20, 1901, for example, the Wescosville Union Sunday School held a large old-fashioned picnic, where old and young could enjoy “a day of innocent recreation.” A good band, all the usual amusements at openair festivals, and booths where food could be purchased.
From the opening of the trolley line in 1899 until the fall of 1903 the fare between Allentown and East Texas was five cents. Villagers were greatly upset when the fare doubled— this was a substantial increase at the time. The trolley company began to offer a special excursion fare of five cents to those coming to the grove for camp meetings.
The Emmanuel Grove Camp Meeting Association, led by Rev. B.F.M. Fahl of Allentown’s Twelfth Street Baptist Church, purchased the grove in late 1908. They built an auditorium to accommodate 1,000, and 100 cottages, each with two rooms, a porch, four windows, and a front and rear door. Concrete walkways were planned. A church or organization using the grove did not have to pay except for the cottages, which were $3.50 each for the entire time of the rental.
In May 1909, The Morning Call reported that Pastor Fahl was in charge of the laborers and mechanics working on the cottages. At least one other pastor with the same name was involved. Rev. Joseph Fahl of the Macungie Baptist Church, who was also a workman on the site, preached a sermon in English on “The Ascension of Christ” on opening day of the camp meeting on May 20, 1909.
Out in the forest of chestnut trees that used to be known as Fairview Grove, along the Allentown and Reading trolley line, beyond Wescoesville, there has sprung up a village that during this summer will be the centre of the religious life of a large body of Allentown people. The grove has been renamed “Emmanuel Grove” by the members of the Twelfth Street Baptist Church who now own it and who have spent much time and money and exerted much work and thought in planning and arranging a model camp-meeting grove. With this work virtually completed, there was a happy gathering of men and women out at the grove yesterday in attendance at the first meeting to be held, Ascension Day being appropriately chosen for this event. (Morning Call, 21 May 1909)
When further improvements were made in 1912 and the cottages repainted, each one was given a biblical name. Today, probably by coincidence, all the streets in the residential subdivision closest to the grove also have biblical names.
The camp-meeting association continued to offer Emmanuel Grove to any denomination that wanted to use its facilities (newspaper reports suggest most users were Baptist congregations) until the late 1920s. Then, in 1929, the grove was sold to the Eastern Pennsylvania conference of Seventh-Day Adventists, which had over 2,000 members in fifty churches. The first major improvement on the approximately thirteenacre tract was to build a new vegetarian kitchen and an enlarged dining room, big enough to serve 500 at one time— with no flesh meats of any kind served.
The grove seems not to have been offered for rent to others after the Seventh-Day Adventists bought it. Large numbers of church members were now coming from a wide area for meetings, and a large new wood and steel pavilion, 100 by 175 feet, was built in 1939.
Trolley service ended on October 19, 1933, and was replaced the next day by bus service provided by the Allentown-Reading Transit Company, the successor to the Allentown-Reading Traction Company. Buses were used on the old trolley route until 1942 or 1943.
A major fire destroyed the pavilion in 1966, at this time owned by the Pennsylvania Conference of Seventh Day Adventists, which had been formed in 1964 by a merger of the eastern and western conferences. Inadequate electrical wiring was found to be the cause. Local fire fighters were able to save the cottages by keeping them wet. In February 1968 another fire damaged a number of the cottages, and a third one in April 1968 did major damage, destroying fourteen cottages and damaging others. The grounds had not been used for any large meetings for several years by this time.
In October 1970, Calvary Temple in Allentown bought the park and renamed it Calvary Jubilee Park. The park continued to be a place for religious gatherings and celebrations, with concerts, revival crusades, and activities of all kinds for young and old. Among the evangelists and singers brought in for special events in 1977 was Buffalo Bill Carson, a bornagain Christian with a straight-shooting message. During the same time period, the mid-1970s, Calvary Temple was expanding and built a large new church on Winchester Drive in South Whitehall Township.
The Church of God, a Pentecostalist church serving primarily Spanish-speaking members, purchased the grove site in 1985 from Calvary Temple and used it for a summer retreat for the church’s northeast Spanish district and innercity children. Iglisia de Dios was then moving from place to place in Allentown, renting vacant buildings or space from other churches until it bought the former Trinity Evangelical Congregational Church at 10th and Linden streets in 2002. The church added two dormitories and two single-family homes for staff at Jubilee Park. The park continues to be used as church offices and for meetings.
Today the former local beauty spot is for sale once more.
In 1900, trolley mail service was authorized between Allentown and Kutztown, replacing the “star route” (a con‐ tracted delivery route) that had been in place for many years. The number of deliveries each way doubled from a single one daily, and the speed of moving mail between Allentown and Kutztown, which had been six hours each way, was reduced to ninety minutes.
LMTHS Newsletter Spring 2018 pages 6-7
© Copyright Lower Macungie Township Historical Society2018
