Scranton
Scranton, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Ebenezer Slocum built his first house, and made the first iron here prior to 1800. Its founding, naming, and growth as a city were due to George W. Scranton and associates. Leader in iron and steel for 60 years after its founding, 1840.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Before 1800, Ebenezer Slocum built one of the first homes here and forged the valley's first iron, hinting at the industry to come. The city took its name and its momentum from George W. Scranton and his associates, who from the town's 1840 founding made it a national leader in iron and steel for six decades. What began as a frontier forge grew into one of America's great industrial centers.
Why it matters
Scranton's rise from a backwoods ironworks to a steelmaking powerhouse embodies the industrial transformation that built modern America.
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Related people
- · Ebenezer Slocum
- · George W. Scranton
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Anthracite Mine Disaster
Throop, PA · est. 1994
By 1911 northeastern Pennsylvania's anthracite fields powered the nation, but at a brutal human price. On the morning of April 7, fire broke out at the Pancoast mine in Throop, and seventy-two miners suffocated underground along with a government rescue worker who died trying to save them. The catastrophe pushed the state to act, and that June a new law required that buildings inside coal mines be built of fireproof materials.
Scranton
Scranton, PA · est. 1951
Iron-making began on this ground before 1800, when Ebenezer Slocum built the area's first house and forged its first iron. But the settlement's true rise came with George W. Scranton and his associates, whose ironworks after 1840 turned the place into a booming industrial city that bore his name. For six decades Scranton stood among the nation's leaders in iron and steel.
William W. Scranton (1917-2013)
Scranton, PA · est. 2016
William W. Scranton belonged to the family whose name the city bears, and he came of age as its anthracite economy was fading. A World War II pilot, he served in Congress and then as governor of Pennsylvania in the 1960s, pushing to modernize the state's industry, highways, schools, and welfare programs. His later roles as a United Nations ambassador and adviser to presidents made him a national figure across decades of public life.
Pennsylvania Gravity
Dunmore, PA · est. 1999
From 1850 to 1884 the Pennsylvania Coal Company operated a gravity railroad between lower Pittston and Hawley, moving anthracite across the rugged coal country of northeastern Pennsylvania. Near this point the line crossed the highway on an overhead trestle at what was designated Plane No. 7 — one of the inclined planes that let gravity and stationary engines move loaded cars over the hills. It was part of a vast network built to carry coal out of the region.