Hike #1347; Greater Hazleton Loop

Hike #1347; Greater Hazleton Loop

8/16/20 Greater Hazleton Loop with Jillane Becker, Professor John DiFiore, Peter Fleszar, Neil George, Serious Sean Dougherty, Robin Deitz, and Heshi

Hazleton Station historic view

This hike would be a large loop in the Hazleton PA area. It is an area I’d only begun to scrape the surface of, but for some reason I had never done an actual hike through this town.

Hazleton Station today

Hazleton is probably the largest of all of the coal country towns, so the fact that I’ve not walked through it yet at all is actually pretty crazy.

Older Hazleton Station

I’d done plenty of hikes that were in pretty close proximity to this, but hadn’t gotten around to doing the town itself, so I came up with a route that would connect a couple of the previous hikes I’d done in the area with downtown Hazleton.

Older Hazleton station site today

There is a tangled web of railroads all over the area, so there’s certainly a lot to pick from when it comes to what I wanted to try to connect together, but the one I really wanted to start exploring more of, and I had just a little earlier in the Summer, was the Delaware, Susquehanna, and Schuylkill line, established in 1890.

Hazleton Station historic view

I always tend to go for the more obscure lines, and this was probably he most obscure of the lines between Freeland and Hazleton area, as it was much smaller than the others.

Hazleton Station site today

The Central Railroad of NJ, the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and the Reading Railroad were all major players through this area, and both the CNJ and LV served the area around Drifton, just to the south of the town of Freeland, so they had a hold on the pricing.

DS&S was to the right of the active tracks I understand

In order to combat the unfair pricing of these heavy hitters, the Coxe Brothers started the DS&S with their headquarters being righ by their mines.
The line was completed in 1891 quite parallel with the other lines, and they had about 32 miles of main line. Various branches went between Drifton, Roan, G0wen, and Eckley.
The line was eventually purchased by the Lehigh Valley Railroad in 1905, which is probably when a lot of it was abandoned because it was just repeat service for other lines there.

Repurposed old mills of some sort

I looked at where the line went, and there was a good amount of track out to Hazleton.
The great thing about this route is that the “Greater Hazleton Rails to Trails” for the most part follows the old DS&S right of way, and this was one of the rail trails that I’d still never followed.
I came up with lots of other pulp to fit in with this hike, and threw a fantastic swim spot into the mix that we had visited previously on our hike out of Freeland. I figured this would be a winner of a hike with that and other reservoirs along the way.

Former DS&S line

I decided on the Giant food store off of Mine Street for the meeting point in Hazleton. It was right along the former Lehigh Valley Railroad line, which is still active. We could walk from the start on the tracks for just a little bit to a junction point where the DS&S broke off. A segment of that still has track there as well, or at least right next to it.
Jillane and I drove to the town in the morning, and got there a little bit early. I decided to take that time to set up a few then and now compilations that were right at the meet point.

End of former DS&S track at Roan Yard site

The first one was the old Lehigh Valley Railroad Hazleton freight station, which is a handsome block type brick structure, probably built around 1900 some time. The station still stands and is in use as another business. I managed to get a good comparison shot here, where tracks used to come out to the one side of it, but now there is only a single track passing by further to the south of it. Just near that same station was once an earlier freight station; the original one was built in 1873, and was replaced by one I had a photo of from 1908. The second station to serve the site replaced the original in 1891.

End of the former DS&S trackage at Roan Yard

Apparently the original passenger station was moved to the location to serve as a freight station as well, but I’m not sure which one I had the photo of. There are actually two in the photo, and it’s possible that one is the earlier freight station, and one was the passenger station that had been moved around 1907.
I set that one up, then got one of the former Lehigh Valley Railroad passenger station, just across from the freight site a bit.
It was a nice looking brick station built in 1907, and then demolished in 1963.

Path through former Roan yard

There is another building on the site today, which has had awnings added to make it look somewhat like a station, but none appears to be the original structure.
This one was a little easier to set up because some of the other area buildings are still in place form the older photo.
Once we were all together in the parking lot, we were soon ready to head out. We walked simply behind the store, where there was a homeless person living in the weeds up against a building, and got on the former Lehigh Valley tracks heading west.

Former Roan yard shows some evidence of grades

There was a fork in the line just ahead where the left route turned hard to connect with a southbound route. We turned here, skirted some apartments, and continued atop a large fill for a bit. It didn’t look like we were too out in the open, not that anyone would matter up there because everyone walks the tracks through a town like Hazleton.
We continued walking on this and came to the junction with the main southbound route and continued on the tracks, still up on a high fill.

Old road in Roan yard area

Pretty soon, we crossed over Church Street on a bridge, then continued ahead and crossed Laurel Avenue at grade. We remained at grade with the land around us for a bit and then crossed nearly over the intersection of Wyoming Street on Buttonwood Street. We skirted a business on the right briefly, and then passed into a slightly wooded area before reaching the junction with an industrial spur that follows close to the former DS&S line. It appeared that line was slightly above this track to the south, and soon joins with where the tracks are now. We followed this past a couple of commercial places.

DS&S branch crossing a power line

Penn Summit Tubular was on our left, DBI Services Corporation on our right, we passed Cedar Street on the left, and then crossed Poplar Street.
Across from us, there were some old industrial buildings that looked like the style of old rolling mills, but now is used as either a mall or something or other. I can’t remember what it was.
It was in this area that the Roan Yard of the DS&S used to start. There was a little junction just ahead past the building, which still had an old water tower standing behind it.

Former DS&S at the end of Roan Yard

I at first figured we would follow the lower route but that didn’t look too great. We backtracked and got on the upper track, which was heading into another corporation soon.
The area opened up rather quickly, and I wanted to move through fast as not to get in any sort of trouble. There were vehicles parked in plain sight, and then we started passing beneath giant pipes that went over the tracks above. This was I believe the Reynolds Packaging place. Another is Multi Plastics. I wonder if this is the facility where Reynolds Wrap is made. I suppose it could be.

Greater Hazleton Rails to Trails

We hurried through there and continued on the tracks out to where they ended in a long run out. At that point, there was a way of getting around the chain link fence off to the left. Immediately on the other side, there was an ATV path going north/south. We regrouped here.
Once everyone was around, we couldn’t continue through the Roan yard because houses were built on it to the east. We turned right to follow the ATV path a short distance to the north, and then turned left on a utility line clearing.

Watershed stuff

The utility clearing is one of two that are on either side of the Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce Beltway, a large highway that doesn’t get a lot of use.
We followed the path for a bit and then there was a side path going off to the left after the development ended. We decided to head on over to check this out.
The path led into woods that were also part of the old DS&S Roan Yard. I could make out some of the disturbances in the surface where there were track beds.

Bear statues on the rail trail

We remained on this path until it was coming close to houses on the north side. From there, there was an abandoned road heading off to the right, back to the south again. It had pavement on it, though somewhat broken up. I think this might have been an earlier alignment of Broad Street, which is now just a little further to the east of this.
We turned right to follow it, and while walking, I spotted a raised right of way in the woods to the left. I figured at first that it was some sort of flood protection berm.

Greater Hazleton Rails to Trails

The main DS&S route remained a little to the north of here, went across Broad Street, and then passes through an area today known as Luke Village. This was not looking like an easy spot to wander through, so we didn’t bother.
We continued back to the south to the utility line clearing once again, and by then I realized that the berm we had seen was actually the old DS&S branch. It weaved over to the east slightly, and then crossed the utility clearing. I was able to better recognize it as a rail grade then.

Grassland spot along the rail trail

I had saved images from my KMZ files on my computer before heading out so that I would be able to find where some of these historic lines were if I needed to, and that confirmed to me that this was a rail bed.
We continued on the utility clearing out toward Broad Street, and crossed a small wet area that feeds into a larger stream.
Pete pointed out that this larger stream was known as the Dreck Creek. I didn’t think much of it at first until it was brought to my attention that this translates to Shit Creek.

Along the rail trail

Actually, in both Yiddish and German languages, “Dreck” translates to excrement or rubbish, so it is a pretty closer translation to being “Shit Creek”.

Back on the rail bed

It made it kind of funny that as we moved ahead, there was all sorts of nice signage promoting the Dreck Creek watershed.
At Broad Street, we took a path to the left from the power line to come out directly across the street from the Greater Hazleton Rails to Trails parking lot. The trail at first does not follow the rail bed at all, but rather a section of utility clearing that might have once been an older road or something. We crossed the road and immediately saw a shelter of some sort at the trail head. It looked like an overnight shelter.

The rail bed

The building was locked, and placed in memory of a local man. I thought maybe this place was available to people going some distance, but this trail is really not all that long.
The lot had bear statues and lots of very nice signs. Several cars were in the parking lot.
The first section of trail was just along the edge of this clearing, and there were spots to the left that were set up looking like community gardens, but it was actually a native grass or wildflower area, with a little walkway out to it.

A drag line?

There was also one of those parcourse trail things with exercise stations, but some of them were very odd compared to others I’d seen. Perhaps the most interesting one was one set up like a drag line, where it was in a sort of sand box, and a kid could get on and use only the mechanics of the equipment to pull a bucket full of sand around. It was actually pretty neat. Just after that one, there was another that was a little roller thing with a chair in front of it. This one was ridiculous, like it’s for people who fell like running but not standing up. We passed these things, and came to a ninety degree bend right in the trail.

This was the point where the trail left the clearing and returned to the DS&S railroad bed.
I liked the fact that it was an improved surface, but they didn’t go out of their way to make it overly wide.
The exercise stations ended in this section, and it soon gave way to a very nice section of simple trail through the woods.
Serious Sean was playing stuff on his guitar through this section, and I don’t remember what the first stuff was he was strumming out, but the chords made me think of Badfinger.

History marker

I had just earlier heard their hit song “No Matter What” on the radio, and I asked Sean if he remembered how to play it, and of course he did so this ended up being the first song we sang along this one.
We ended up chatting about the music and some of the great bands that have some outstanding album tracks that hardly anyone knows. Sean knew the Badfinger catalogue better than I did and brought up some good albums. I’m sure other songs came up beyond at that point, I just can’t remember what.

DS&S line

The railroad bed was on a bit of a shelf with the dip to the right down into the Dreck Creek watershed. The right of way was very narrow until we got to Stockton Mountain Road.
At that crossing, the trail went onto the watershed property where the railroad is used as a maintenance access road.
We crossed over, and even though it was a wider route with more a gravel surface it was still quite nice. Soon, we had the Dreck Creek Reservoirs coming into view below us to the right.

DS&S rail grade

I had thought to maybe head downhill to the first one, the Dam G Reservoir, to take a swim, but I wasn’t all that hot yet, and it looked like it’d be a chore to get down to it.

The rail bed

We continued ahead on the grade and sang songs, or I chatted with Pete about the different sections of trail, or about water infrastucture.
Soon, we came to a spot with a picnic bench and a bit of an outlook over to the Dam G, beyond which is the Dam F Reservoir, which was out of sight.
We had a little break there at the picnic benches, and there were several interpretive signs. One of them had a large wasp nest hanging beneath the back of it, and someone wrote a warning to it on the kiosk.

Shit creek sign

From this point, the railroad bed took us around a corner and started heading to the north. There were fewer people on the trail after passing through this spot.

The trail skirted a meadow area with an open information kiosk sign. Apparently, whatever information used to be in it was removed, and so I thought it was a good caption for “Open to interpretation”.
Sean had brought a mask of “Mask”, and I mean the movie “Mask” with Jim Carrey from the 1990s.
The mask really didn’t look like the Jim Carrey face at all, but it was still funny, and he wore it for a photo of him in the interpretation sign frame.

Yummo

When he first showed up in the morning, he even wore the thing into the pharmacy in the parking lot, since we are still required to wear masks into the buildings. Surprisingly, no one said anything to him about wearing this oddity into there.
Ahead, the trail came to a sort of an intersection where it looked like the main route turned hard to the left, and there was a sort of secondary looking route going off to the right beyond a sort of gate thing. I at first thought we were to continue, but my map showed to go right.

The rail bed

The road section going ahead is known as Beryllium Road. I found out later that there was some sort of top secret government facility out there that produced Beryllium.
The substance is not something often found in nature, and it is produced because it increases the thermal and electrical conductivity in alloys such as copper and nickel. There is apparently nothing left of the facility today.
The rail bed continued to the right on the more obscure route, through light woods.

Along Reservoir G

The area ahead was more disturbed than previous sections we’d been through, mostly due to strip coal mining that took place in the more recent years than underground.
In this next stretch, I watched closely for the former wye that led to the DS&S scales.

Dreck Creek sign

This of course was where ore could be weighed in the cars. I’m not quite sure how this set up worked, but I did notice exactly where the southern end of the wye was.

Wasp nest at kiosk

As I walked a little further beyond, I could see some of the stone work that made up the base of the scales. I was surprised to see any of it still in place. The run out track from the wye appeared to have been covered over by huge piles from later mining efforts.
We continued a little further ahead from here, and I could tell the DS&S grade continued through a somewhat disturbed area while the trail skirted around to the left just a bit. After a short corner, the trail returned to the rail bed, although only briefly.

Wasp nest under kiosk

There was a history marker about the DS&S, which impressed me to see. A lot of these trails don’t say much about thes elines, but this one was actually quite good.
The trail continued straight ahead, and then we crossed active former Lehigh Valley Railroad tracks.
The trail utilizes the original DS&S bridge abutments to get over the active line, which we could barely see through the chain link fences on top.

Dam G Reservoir

Once we got to the other side, the DS&S continued straight ahead, but it was completely obliterated, and a giant pile stood straight ahead of us.

DS&S grade

The trail shifted hard to the right, and started gaining a bit more elevation.
Ahead, the DS&S is completed excavated out of existence. There is a deep hole from strip mining that took place after the abandonment of this line, and the right of way doesn’t resume until the other side. As such, the trail has to find another way to get to the other side, which meant cutting to the east, and then uphill a bit into the disturbed former mine lands.

Serious Sean entertains

There were pretty much no trees at the height of the land, and ATVs could be heard all around us. They take to most other open land, but don’t really get on the pubic trail.

DS&S grade, now trail

The trail swung back to the left, and then descended through a slight cut going downhill. Then, it came to a spot where orange mesh fence was in place blocking off the route through a giant concrete box culvert, with nothing going over the top.
It was quite a strange site. There were signs saying to keep out, but the trail obviously continued on the other side. People were also obviously either going through or around this culvert.

Open to interpretation?

There was no fill, and no sign of any kind of road that would have gone over top of this structure. What I did find out when I read into it later was that a branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad used to pass through this clearing.

Greater Hazleton Rails to Trails

The rail bed might have actually been more at the same grade as the trail, but it looks to me like there might be some kind of consideration for rebuilding something there in the near future, otherwise they would not have gone through the trouble for the culvert.
Because the section prior to this was so open and it was hot out, we decided to use the shade of the newly poured culvert structure for a good break.
We all sat down in the thing to hang out, and have a drink and a snack before moving on.

!!!!!!!!!

Because we had been talking about Badfinger and where all of these sings came from, the conversation went on to other numbers they’d written, which included “Without You”.

The rail bed

The song was recorded by Badfinger, but became a major hit for Harry Nillson in the 1970s, and again for Mariah Carey in the 1990s. There were some great acoustics in the culvert, so we sang that one, part of the time while there were other people walking by.
After that, we somehow got going on Simon and Garfunkle, and though I’d never tried to sing it before, we ended up doing “Bridge over Troubled Water”, which I guess wasn’t too bad considering we were on a hike under a culvert.

The rail bed

We got up from here, and continued on the trail on the other side.
The trail skirted some of the cleared area, crossed over an access road, and then cut to the right a bit through some woods. I watched closely on my phone GPS because the next swim spot I had in mind was in an old mine put just up ahead. We had almost reached the point where we would connect with one of my previous hikes, which was one on the former Tannery Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and connections.

Beryllium Road and the rail bed, right, diverge

We had reached the junction point right near here, and then continued north on the former LV grade through the Jeddo Tunnel to Pink Ash Junction previously.

The trail

I had also connected to those points on the most recent hike out of Freeland this year.
I knew that the mine pit was full of nice clear water, and I thought everyone might appreciate going for a nice swim in it.
When we got to the point that the trail came close to this, we went down from it.
I ran over to the body of water and jumped in, feeling quite hot enough for it to be great at this point. To my great surprise, no one else really seemed interested in getting into the water yet.

The old DS&S scales ruins

I stayed in just long enough to get myself cooled off. Some of the group walked to a nearby platform used by the Bue Mountain, Reading, and Northern Railroad as a sort of toruist thing. It was in this area that there was a major mine disaster.

south side of the scale wye on DS&S

On December 18th, 1869, ten or more miners died in a collapse of the Stockton Mine, and there is a mockup of the site with a chute just a little further from my swim spot.
This was a rather short break, and we were soon heading back over to the trail, which stayed just barely behind a line of trees from the pond. We followed it to the east a bit, and then to the north a bit more. The rail bed apparently is obliterated because of another deep hole to the west of there, but pretty soon we got back to it.

DS&S grade

There was a grassy overgrown section to the left, but the trail continued on it well to the right with no problem. We followed it through thicker woods to the east of here.
We continued across a utility clearing, and through more woods to a second clearing where the trail seemed to abruptly end.
It looked like there are certainly plans to extend it from here, but the railroad bed was somewhat overgrown ahead. Eventually, they plan to extend this trail out to the Eckley Miners Village.

Ashmore Junction station view

We continued from the clearing, where there were a couple vehicles parked, along the grade through the woods. It wasn’t too weedy, and we had no trouble really with this section.

DS&S where the trail diverges

Pretty soon, we reached the former grade crossing of Hazlebrook Road. Here, the rail bed gets very weedy on the other side. We decided not to try to follow that bit at all, and instead walk Hazlebrook Road.
The rail bed ahead goes out through someone’s back yard and I think there is a pool or something in the middle of it.
The road was fine through here, which we took not too far out to the little mine patch village of Hazlebrook. We crossed the active railroad tracks there, former Lehigh Valley line.

History on the DS&S

We had taken those tracks to the north previously a couple years back, and got down to them only a couple of months ago on our Freeland hike, but not this time.

Former DS&S bridge site

We continued across the tracks and straight onto an abandoned and blocked off road that served some mining interests at one time.
I believe this is now state game lands, or at least under jurisdiction of them. I saw state game lands signs walking in.
We came to a small parking area, and a gate leading into a very wide open field area.
These reclaimed mine lands were rather recently reclaimed and subject to some kind of wetland restoration project. There were some trenches out in them diverting water.

A view of the LV tracks from the foot bridge on former DSS line

It was super hot walking through this wide open area, but still pretty interesting. We made our way across, and ATV paths went into the woods on the other side.
I watched my phone GPS closely to try to follow which of the paths were correct.
My plan from here was to get to an abandoned mine that is now a huge lake in the middle of nowhere. I figured everyone might appreciate swimming in this hidden, amazing lake.
As we walked through the wooded section, I was quoted what the mileage was.

We were already around ten miles in. This was far more than I had planned on. We must have done some extra mileage at the start when we wandered around some of the former Roan yard, as well as where the trail weaved around from where the mining area was put in.
I started considering here how we might go about changing the hike.
We couldn’t do what I was originally planning. I had wanted to go up to the former Eckley Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and search for an old cemetery in the coal fields.

Acid mine drainage sign

It would have been more than a twenty mile hike if we had added that on at this point. I had several other things I was interested in doing, and a section of path that would take us further to the north before turning west, but that too was going to take far too long.
Instead, I plotted a route north from the mine lake, and then west along utility clearings back to Hazleton, but I still wanted to stop and take a dip, so we remained on course to the mine lake to the east. We turned left at a path intersection that led us around the north side.

The rail trail passes through a culvert where LV rail spur used to be

In retrospect, we should have continued straight ahead. There appears to be an easy approach to the water to take a dip this way, but my way was hard to get down.

The trail in coal fields

Still, we went to the north side, and had to walk around some enormous puddles to get to a point where we could descend to the water. I ended up being the only one to go in this time.
It was indeed a steep way down to get in the water, but I got in and cooled off.
Since no one else was going in, I didn’t take too much time in there again, and soon climbed back out as best I could to come up and dry off.
Serious Sean had passed his guitar on to Neil, who I did not know could play.

The trail in former coal fields

When our break was over, we turned back the direction we had come along the ATV route. When the first side trail broke off to the right from this, we followed it uphill through the woods. This took us out to a power line clearing.
We turned left on the clearing, which went west, but soon made a hard turn to the right and started climbing rather steeply uphill. About partway uphill on this, we crossed the grade to the DS&S, which we had hiked the last time we were out this way.

The rail bed near Hazlebrook

I pointed out the railroad grade as we crossed it, which was totally overgrown in both directions (it didn’t stop us last time) and climbed uphill.

Rail bed where it rejoins the trail

We walked along to the top of the hill where there was a nice view to the south.
From here we simply continued walking to the northwest for a bit, and the right of way turned to head due west.
We continued walking that for a long while. There wasn’t a lot of elevation change, so it went by pretty easily.
I had earlier considered going down to the former Lehigh Valley Railroad and passing through the Jeddo Tunnel, but that would have added some distance to it.

DS&S line

Instead, we passed over the top of the tunnel, and we’d have never known it was below us. There were a few other ATV paths that came in from either side around that track, but we just continued on.
Another smaller utility line crossed in that area, which I considered taking, but we just continued straight to the west, to where it intersected with another line going north and south. We could have done either of these routes, and I had originally considered going to the north along Black Creek.

Neil plays some guitar!

There was an awesome view to the north out into the valley of the Black Creek, and beyond to the town of Freeland, which appeared to sit atop a pretty big hill from that angle.

Freeland view

We could also have gone to the south out to some back roads. Instead of either of these, we ended up taking a path into the woods ahead which stayed on the ridge.

DS&S grade

It was a bit of a gamble, taking this route on the same trajectory as the utility line we had been following, but it was the direction we needed to go, and it was in the shade.
The route must have at one time been an old road because it was pretty easy to walk and didn’t have a ton of rocks in it.
We continued out along this ridge until we came to a point where another couple of woods roads came together, and some descended southwest downhill to the left. I decided we would head down here.

The old mine pond

The route was a little less used than the one we found on top of the mountain, and it had a couple of other little roads criss cross. We switched at some point to one further west.

DS&S grade

As we neared the bottom, there was a little settlement of a few homes, a “coal patch” town for workers, and I can’t find any information on what this one was called.
When it looked like the woods road was just coming out into private back yards, we continued on a route to the southwest even further, but that took us out in a clearing of what might have been a hunting camp. There were a couple people back there near a building, and I just gave a wave as we walked by and headed to the access road.

Reclaimed coal lands and wetland restoration

The access road went back to the east and out to the side road which is shown on Google maps as “Stockton 7”. The Stockton mines and slopes were all through this area.

DS&S grade

Hazlebrook Road comes into this community, and then another road designated as Stockton Road cuts to the south and then west again. I figure the settlement name might just be Stockton.
We passed “no trespassing” signs on our way out, and rather than have any problem, we kept walking and turned right on Stockton Road. I waited up down that a little bit for everyone else to catch up.
We soon reached the hard right turn to the west, and were headed back in the direction of Hazleton. Former Lehigh Valley Railroad once served mines directly to the south.

Power line walking

We didn’t se much of any railroad grade through there, and aerial images seem to look like there was one on the north side of Stockton Road, but I’m not sure.

Where DS&S crossed Hazlebrook Road

We continued west on Stockton Road, and then came to the intersection with Stockton Mountain Road where we turned slightly left and followed a parallel utility right of way rather than the road. I think some of the group remained on the road and had gotten ahead of me though.
The route was pretty good except that it got really weedy and we had one stream crossing at the lowest point on it. Other than that, it was a nice walk until we came back out behind a building on the parallel road which was now E. Diamond Avenue.

Power line view south

The rest of the group was moving ahead pretty fast at this point, and I think by then it was only Jillane, Professor John, Serious Sean, and I still walking together.

The road walk wasn’t all bad, because as always we filled the time with good conversation or music.
Heshi and I talked about the current state of politics, which is getting to be insane, and he is now one of twelve in the Philadelphia area registered as the Whig party, which was a sort of defunct older party that the Republicans replaced. Heshi described a lot of what their core values are because neither Democrats nor Republicans adequately represent what most Americans want this day in age.

The group on the power line

Heshi is now a sort of head of voting in his district, which is really cool to hear. When you have someone that is not affiliated with either party, the voting system can be trusted more.

We walked on through town at this point, which was really nice because I’d actually wanted to see the town. I’d really never gotten to have a very close look at it before, except when Jillane and I had dinner there once many years ago, and I think we went to a thrift store or something.
There was an interesting tower type structure on the left side, which was very obviously an old industrial building turned apartments or something.
out 1923. This turned out to be the Duplan Tower and mill building.

Power line view

Jean L. Duplan, a successful silk maker from France, visited Hazleton area in 1898 in consideration of starting a silk industry there.

Lehigh Valley Railroad station

He was initially repelled by the dirty coal mining land and warned of rough laborers, but eventually was convinced to construct what would become the world's largest silk mill. The mill was successful for many years, but closed in 1953. Talks of creative reuse of the building have taken place in recent years, but the building appears to still be vacant. Like so many other historic structures, or basically any community improvement project, it seems to have been temporarily shelved due to the covid19 stuff.

LV station in Hazleton

We got to Vine Street, next to a park and a cemetery, and started walking to the south. At some point here, Sean started playing “Hotel California”. He said that it was one of the most requested songs they would do when he was in a band and playing gigs.
We started singing the song, and as we were heading past a building, a guy came out and started singing along with us across the street. It’s always cool when people around are engaging. We actually paused there for a little bit on that song.

Flowaz

I couldn’t keep up with the high notes this late in the day after lots of singing, but it was fun anyway. We continued on Vine Street down to Mine Street and the old Lehigh Valley Railroad station again.
I had wanted to stop at yet another former station site in town just before the end, but I missed it by a block or two, so we just headed over there at the end to check it out.
This last one was built before the railroad as an old coach stop, a saloon and meat market. I’m not sure what year the station was built, but it was converted to the “Wyoming Street Station” between 1888 and 1891.

Historic view of Wyoming Street station

I’m not sure when the building was demolished, but it was probably discontinued for use as a station when the 1907 station was built just a little bit to the west of there.

Former site of Wyoming Street Station

This had been a really fun hike, although I wished more people would have enjoyed the epic swim spot we had found previously. I’ll have to do another hike where we visit that area, because there really is a lot more to see. Just the rail infrastructure alone we could spend a lifetime on, but the back woods informal trails seem to go on forever, which is exactly how long I want the hikes to go on.

HAM