Steamtown National Historic Site

I have enjoyed taking the drive across New York and into Scranton as an alternative to the busy highways of the Northeast. The route is more relaxing, the scenery is beautiful, and it offers the opportunity to stop at the Steamtown National Historic Site.

Located in the heart of Scranton, Steamtown preserves the history of the steam railroad and the people whose hard work helped fuel America’s industrial growth. Established as a National Historic Site in 1986, it was created to preserve one of the nation’s finest collections of steam locomotives and railroad equipment while telling the broader story of how railroads transformed the United States. Rather than focusing only on the locomotives themselves, the site explores the engineers, conductors, mechanics, and countless railroad workers whose efforts connected cities, carried coal, transported goods, and made westward expansion and industrialization possible.

Steamtown preserves an era when communities were built around the railroad. Scranton itself grew into one of America’s great industrial cities because of anthracite coal mining and the railroads that carried that coal to markets throughout the Northeast. Every locomotive on display reminds us that behind the machinery were thousands of skilled workers whose labor kept the country moving.