Lehigh Valley History
Explore the rich industrial heritage and historical landmarks that shaped the Lehigh Valley.
Lehigh Valley History
Constitution Drive: The Real History of Allentown's Most Legendary Road
A one-legged ghost, a family of albinos and a whistling in the woods have made Constitution Drive Allentown's most legendary road. The documented history is stranger: a Walking Purchase payoff, abandoned quarries full of radioactive rock, Bethlehem Steel buffer land, and a park nobody can quite finish.
Lehigh Valley History
The Cup on the Roof: How Dixie Came to Easton, and What Happens Next
A fear of shared drinking cups built a company, the 1918 flu sent it to Wilson Township, and a 50,000-gallon cup sat on the roof for a century. After 43 years empty, two rejected tax deals and a Hollywood film shoot, the Dixie Cup plant is becoming 412 apartments.
Lehigh Valley History
Toys “R” Us Returns to Lehigh Valley Mall Thursday, Across the Lot From the Store the Valley Lost
A seasonal Toys “R” Us opens September 24 at Lehigh Valley Mall, eight years after Whitehall lost its store. The full story runs from a 1948 baby furniture shop to a $6.6 billion buyout, $464 million in fees, and 33,000 people laid off without severance.
Lehigh Valley History
Living Inside UNESCO: Historic Moravian Bethlehem
Bethlehem became a World Heritage Site in 2024. But you cannot buy a house inside it, UNESCO did not add a single rule, and the regulations that actually govern your front door have been on the books since 1961.
Lehigh Valley History
Steel Money on the Hill
Railroad men built it, steel men bought it, and the man who founded the American oil industry died in a brick twin halfway down the block. A walk through Fountain Hill mansion row and what became of it.
Lehigh Valley History
“The Backbone of America”: When “Mad Men” Made Bethlehem Steel Its Client
In a 2007 episode of “Mad Men,” the admen of Sterling Cooper pitched a very real Lehigh Valley client: Bethlehem Steel. The twist: their slogans about holding up New York's skyline were basically true.
Lehigh Valley History
"Living Here in Allentown": How Billy Joels Anthem Defined and Divided a Region
In 1982, Billy Joel released a song about the decline of the American steel worker. Originally titled "Levittown," the track was renamed "Allentown" because it rhymed better. Four decades later, the song remains both anthem and controversy.
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Stories, events, and more from across the region.
Lehigh Valley History
Bulldog Country: How Mack Trucks Put the Lehigh Valley on Wheels
When the Mack brothers moved their fledgling truck company from Brooklyn to Allentown in 1905, they launched a century-long partnership between a city and its signature industry.
Lehigh Valley History
World Heritage: Bethlehems Moravian Settlement Earns Global Recognition
On July 26, 2024, the Historic Moravian Bethlehem District was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, the first transnational World Heritage listing in the United States.
Lehigh Valley History
Where Founding Fathers Slept: The Sun Inn and Bethlehems Colonial Hospitality
Built by the Moravians in 1758, the Sun Inn hosted George and Martha Washington, John and Abigail Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and a procession of Founding Fathers.
Lehigh Valley History
From Blast Furnaces to Concert Stages: The Rebirth of Bethlehems Steel Site
Where 1,800 acres of steelmaking once thundered along the Lehigh River, a new identity has emerged. The transformation of the former Bethlehem Steel plant is one of the most ambitious brownfield redevelopments in American history.
Lehigh Valley History
Forge to Festival: How Musikfest Rose from the Ashes of Bethlehem Steel
When Bethlehem Steel began its decline in the early 1980s, a chamber of commerce chairman proposed an audacious idea: a free music festival. Four decades later, Musikfest draws over a million visitors annually.
Lehigh Valley History
Christmas City USA: How Bethlehem Became Americas Holiday Hometown
Named on Christmas Eve in a stable, Bethlehem has been inseparable from the holiday season since its founding in 1741. From handmade beeswax candles to Moravian stars, the citys Christmas celebrations span nearly three centuries.
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Stories, events, and more from across the region.
Lehigh Valley History
The Rivalry: 160 Years of Lafayette vs. Lehigh Football
It is the most played rivalry in all of college football: two small colleges separated by seventeen miles of the Lehigh Valley, competing every year since 1884.
Lehigh Valley History
Asa Packers Gift: How a Railroad Fortune Built Lehigh University
Born to a poor Connecticut family, Asa Packer worked as a carpenter and canal builder before founding the Lehigh Valley Railroad and making the largest donation ever given to an educational institution.
Lehigh Valley History
At the Forks of the Delaware: Eastons Journey from Lenape Homeland to Crayon Capital
Long before it became the birthplace of Crayola crayons, the confluence of the Lehigh and Delaware Rivers was a place the Lenape called Lechanwitauk: The Place at the Forks.
Lehigh Valley History
From Trout Ponds to Thrill Rides: The 160-Year Story of Dorney Park
What began as Solomon Dorneys trout hatchery and summer resort along Cedar Creek in 1860 has evolved into one of only fourteen continuously operating amusement parks in America.
Lehigh Valley History
The Cement That Built America: David O. Saylor and the Lehigh Valleys Forgotten Empire
In 1871, a Coplay businessman named David O. Saylor received the first American patent for Portland cement, launching an industry that would make the Lehigh Valley responsible for 72 percent of all Portland cement produced in the United States by 1900.
Lehigh Valley History
Route of the Black Diamond: The Lehigh Valley Railroad
Born from the anthracite coal trade and named for the highest-grade coal it hauled, the Lehigh Valley Railroad connected the mines of northeastern Pennsylvania to the great cities of the East Coast for over a century.
