The Lehigh Coal & Navigation Building

Standing prominently near the center of Jim Thorpe is the former headquarters of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company. After seeing the enormous piece of anthracite displayed nearby, this building helps complete the story. The coal beneath the mountains created the opportunity, but the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company developed the transportation system that helped turn Mauch Chunk into one of the important industrial communities of nineteenth-century Pennsylvania.

The company emerged in the early 1800s through the efforts of Josiah White and Erskine Hazard, who recognized both the value of the region’s anthracite and the enormous difficulty of getting it to market. They improved navigation on the Lehigh River and developed the Lehigh Canal, allowing coal to move south toward Philadelphia and other growing cities. In 1827, the company also constructed the gravity railroad between the mines at Summit Hill and Mauch Chunk, allowing loaded coal cars to descend the mountain largely by gravity.

The company became much more than a coal-mining operation. It controlled mines, canals, railroads and other transportation infrastructure, helping shape the development of Mauch Chunk and communities throughout the Lehigh and anthracite regions.

The building in my photograph was designed in 1882 by Philadelphia architect Addison Hutton. Interestingly, it was originally commissioned and begun by the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Before it was completed, however, the railroad sold it to the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, which finished the building and made it its headquarters.

Hutton designed the structure to be fire-resistant, incorporating cast- and wrought-iron structural elements. Its red brick façade, carved sandstone and terra-cotta ornamentation made it one of the most imposing commercial buildings in Mauch Chunk.

The building survived even after the industrial world that created it changed. The Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company eventually disappeared, but its former headquarters was preserved and later rehabilitated for residential use.

What I find particularly interesting is how much of the story of old Mauch Chunk can be understood simply by standing in this part of town. The mountains provided the anthracite. The company found ways to move it. The wealth generated by that enterprise helped create the railroads, businesses, hotels and impressive homes that still line the streets.

The Lehigh Coal & Navigation Building is therefore more than an impressive nineteenth-century office building. It represents the company whose activities helped transform a narrow mountain settlement into the prosperous community of Mauch Chunk.