X-Nico

Lehigh Gorge State Park

The southern access point is just off exit 74 of Interstate 476 via U.S. Route 209 through Jim Thorpe and across the bridge to the north bank on Pennsylvania Route 903 to the Glen Onoko neighborhood, formerly East Mauch Chunk the left bank or northern part of the borough of Jim Thorpe.

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The central access point is near Rockport, a few miles off Pennsylvania Route 93 near the borough of Weatherly, where the mountainous terrain is transitional, creating a relatively shallow sloped flat.

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This is the important northern entrance into the river cut gully or gap between highlands, and was an important barge loading transshipment point on the newly extended upper Lehigh Canal fed initially by a shortline railroad from the Mountain Top yard dating from the 1837 enabling legislation set up to join the Lehigh and Susquehanna Valleys via Mountain Top and the Ashley Planes incline railway.

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Soon both banks of the river are within the borough of Jim Thorpe, and shortly after this the park ends, just above the Pennsylvania Route 903 bridge.

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By that time, the city father's of Baltimore were directly trying to compete for the trans-Allegheny trade by incorporation of the ambitious goals of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to surmount to the Monongahela and Ohio valleys via the Cumberland Narrows mountain pass, despite the early lack of power and speed in the untried Railroad technologies.

see also