Switchback Railroad, Jim Thorpe, Carbon County

I love this time of year - mostly - but today is an especially gloomy and foggy day here in northeastern Pennsylvania. On the plus side, it's my day off, so at least I don't have to go anywhere.

Today we're going to make one final visit to Carbon County, as this is the last of their markers which currently exist. Perhaps in the future they'll get another and I'll be able to cover the dedication. In the meantime, though, I can mark Carbon County as completely finished on my personal marker list, after I finish telling you about today's subject. 

Pennsylvania is, of course, the site of many "firsts". Some of these are well known; we had the first hospital in the United States, the first theater, the first subscription library, the first zoo. Others are less famous, like the first completely air-conditioned building in the country and the first license plate to display a website address. And then there's today's subject, which was the world's first roller coaster.

The marker sits near the Switchback trailhead,
on the north side of Route 209 near Mauch Chunk Lake Park

It didn't start out as a roller coaster, of course; there was no such thing. It was a railroad, although not the traditional sort. After Philip Ginter discovered coal at Summit Hill, coal mining began to grow as the leading industry in what is today Carbon County. Mining the coal was one thing, but what was trickier was transporting it down the mountain to where it could be sold. The Mauch Chunk Railroad was begun in 1828; you might remember from my blog post about Carbon County that Mauch Chunk was the original name of the town now called Jim Thorpe. The railroad's name was later changed to the Mauch Chunk and Summit Hill Railroad.

Tracks were laid on what was originally a wagon road leading to the summit. The railroad, owned by the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, used mules to haul empty cars to the top of the mountain. The cars would be filled with coal and sent back down the rails, powered by gravity. A brakeman controlled the cars, which he sent down in groups of six or seven at a time, and then at the end of the day the mules would be sent back down in their own special cars. Sounds kind of fun, doesn't it? Well, the people back then thought so too, but the entire round trip took close to five hours, so it wasn't entirely desirable.

As you might expect, increasing demand for coal over the next several years was making the LC&N officials very wealthy, but also posing something of a problem. The demand was more than the railroad, with its incredibly long delivery times, could reasonably provide. Josiah White, whom I mentioned in the Carbon County post as being one of the LC&N founders, designed a new version of the railroad; 120 horsepower cable car systems would replace the mules (who probably didn't mind) in bringing the empty cars up the hill, while gravity was still responsible for bringing them back down. It also now operated on two planes - one brought the coal down the side of Mount Pisgah, the other down Mount Jefferson. Much of White's innovation would later be incorporated into the design of actual roller coasters. The railroad's name was changed one more time, to the Mauch Chunk, Summit Hill and Switchback Railroad, often shortened to simply "the Switchback Railroad," and the alterations reduced the round trip from nearly five hours to a little over one.

With this much better return time, the railroad proved irresistible to thrill seekers, and the first roller coaster was born. Passenger cars were created to haul people up to the summit, and from there they would coast down the hill.

In 1872, the Panther Valley Railroad was opened and rendered the Switchback to be basically obsolete for the purposes of coal transport, so it shut down operations in that vein. In 1874 it was sold to the Central Railroad of New Jersey, which leased it to the Mumford brothers, Theodore and H. L., who operated it exclusively as a novelty for tourists. 

The Switchback attracted visitors from all over the world, who were already drawn to the "Switzerland of America," and some of the more famous names who came to ride the Switchback included Thomas Edison and President Ulysses S. Grant. The image at left is a photogravure illustration of the Mount Pisgah plane, taken from Charles Lee's 1895 book Beauties of the Lehigh Valley, which I found while researching something completely unrelated.

The Mumford brothers ran the Switchback for the delight of tourists and locals alike until 1929, when the Central New Jersey Railroad sold it; the buyer was the newly established Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway Company. They continued operations until 1932, at which time the Great Depression hit them hard. The mortgage was foreclosed, and the railway was sold for scrap.

The portion of the Switchback Trail
nearest the PHMC marker

The significance of the coal transport and the first roller coaster was not lost, however. The old wagon road-turned-railway was converted into a hiking trail, and the PHMC placed their historical marker along this trail in 1971. In 1976, a stretch of land from Summit Hill's Ludlow Park all the way to Route 209 in Jim Thorpe was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, identified as the Mauch Chunk and Summit Hill Switchback Railroad. 

Today, the former coal delivery service remains a popular destination for hikers, mountain bikers, and nature enthusiasts. It actually consists of two trails connecting Jim Thorpe and Summit Hill, one being rockier and more suited to mountain bikes; the other, which is an easier and more graded trail, is where you'll find the PHMC marker. This one leads to a great place to take a breather at Mauch Chunk Lake Park, which is a favorite destination for many locals (myself included). Please note that motorized vehicles are prohibited on the trail, but it might be fun to take your bicycle to the summit and coast down, just like those long-ago thrill-seekers once did.

Update 1/14/2021: The National Canal Museum has published their own blog post about the Switchback Railroad and the "Switzerland of America." They have a few pieces of interesting ephemera in their collection, which they share in the post, and it's definitely worth taking a look.

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Sources and Further Reading:

Official website of Carbon County, Pennsylvania

Mauch Chunk Historical Society of Carbon County

Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway at Wikipedia.org

Bartholomew, Ann M.; Metz, Lance E.; Kneis, Michael. Delaware and Lehigh Canals (First ed.). Oak Printing Company, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1989.

Rabenold-Finsel, Rebecca M. Postcard History: Carbon County. Arcadia Publishing, 2004.

Mantz, Lee. "Switchback Gravity Railroad," 2007. (Mantz is the author of Images of America: Summit Hill, and this is his early personal website detailing the history of Summit Hill.)

Lee, Charles S. Beauties of the Lehigh Valley... Illustrated in Photo-Gravure. The Albertype Company, New York, 1895.

Switchback Railroad Trail at Discover NEPA

Switchback Railroad at the Historical Marker Database

If you've enjoyed this, please leave a comment!

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.