Switchback Railroad
Jim Thorpe, Carbon County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
A gravity railroad was built along this mountain in 1827 to carry coal from the mines near Summit Hill to the Lehigh Canal at Mauch Chunk. A back-track and two planes were added in 1844 for the return trip by gravity. Railroad crossed the highway here.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Built in 1827, the Mauch Chunk Switchback Railroad used nothing but gravity to roll loaded coal cars nine miles down the mountain from the Summit Hill mines to the Lehigh Canal, with mules riding along to haul the empties back up. In 1844 engineers added back-tracks and inclined planes so the whole return trip could also be made by gravity. Once a marvel of early industrial engineering, it later became one of America's first tourist thrill rides—a forerunner of the roller coaster.
Why it matters
As one of the earliest railroads in the United States, it helped pioneer the coal-hauling technology that powered the nation's industrial takeoff and even seeded the amusement-ride industry.
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Nearby & related markers
Packer Mansion
Jim Thorpe, PA · est. 1971
Asa Packer arrived in the Lehigh Valley a poor carpenter and left it one of the richest men in America, having built the Lehigh Valley Railroad into an anthracite-coal empire. In 1860 he crowned his fortune with an ornate Italianate mansion overlooking Mauch Chunk (today's Jim Thorpe), and he poured his wealth back into the region—most enduringly by founding Lehigh University in 1865. The house survives with its original furnishings intact, a preserved window into Gilded Age industrial wealth.
White Haven
White Haven, PA · est. 1985
This town took its name from Josiah White, the engineer whose Lehigh Navigation system moved coal and lumber out of the mountains. From 1837 to 1862 White Haven marked the northern end of the two-way canal navigation reaching down to Easton. Here the waterway met White's twenty-mile railroad to Wilkes-Barre, whose steep inclined "Ashley Planes" hauled cars up and over the ridge.
Schuylkill Canal
Port Carbon, PA · est. 1994
In the early 19th century, Pennsylvania's anthracite fields held some of the hardest, cleanest-burning coal in America — but it was worthless without a way to move it. The Schuylkill Navigation Company answered that problem, completing a 108-mile canal from Philadelphia up to Port Carbon in 1828. For a quarter century this spot marked the canal's northern end, where coal from the surrounding mountains began its journey to the industrial cities of the eastern seaboard.
Firth Dock (1828-1871)
Port Carbon, PA · est. 1999
Along the Schuylkill Canal, Firth Dock loaded the hard anthracite coal that powered America's Industrial Revolution, shipping as much as half a million tons a year toward Philadelphia and beyond. Built by the Schuylkill Navigation Company on land held by Philadelphia merchant Thomas Firth, the facility — also called the Palo Alto Loading Dock — operated from 1828 to 1871, when canals still moved the nation's fuel before railroads took over. It marks the quiet infrastructure that made the coal age possible.