White Haven
White Haven, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Named for Josiah White (1781-1850) whose Lehigh Navigation system was vital to coal and lumber transport. This was the northern limit, 1837-1862, of the two-way navigation from Easton. Here it met White''s 20-mile railroad to Wilkes-Barre with its inclined "Ashley Planes."
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
White's ingenious blend of canal and inclined-plane railroad opened Pennsylvania's anthracite country to market, a feat of engineering that helped fuel the young nation's industrial rise.
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Related people
- · Josiah White
Related events
- · Lehigh Navigation
- · Ashley Planes
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Packer Mansion
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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.
Wyoming Division Canal
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Built by the state between 1831 and 1834 as part of the North Branch Canal, the Wyoming Division ran seventeen miles from West Nanticoke to Pittston and opened the Wyoming Valley's rich anthracite beds to the coal markets of the mid-Atlantic. A public boat basin once stood on this spot. Together with the railroads that followed, the canal helped make the valley the world's leading anthracite producer before the line closed in 1882.
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Jim Thorpe, PA · est. 1971
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.