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Penobscot Knob, also Penobscot Mountain, is a summit located in the western fringe of the Poconos nearest to
Mountain Top, Pennsylvania Mountain Top is an unincorporated area and census-designated place (CDP) in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2010 census, the CDP population was 10,982. The Mountain Top CDP is located along Pennsylvania Route 309 (south of ...
which in the Solomon Gap pass below it lies an important multi-modal transportation corridor. At one time before incorporation, Mountain Top and the saddle of the pass was known by the Amerindian name Penobscot. Penobscot Mountain forms part of the drainage divide between the
Lehigh Valley The Lehigh Valley (), known colloquially as The Valley, is a geographic region formed by the Lehigh River in Lehigh County and Northampton County in eastern Pennsylvania. It is a component valley of the Great Appalachian Valley bound to the no ...
& greater
Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock (village), New York, Hancock, New York, the river flows for along the borders of N ...
drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, t ...
and the Wyoming and
Susquehanna Valley The Susquehanna Valley is a region of low-lying land that borders the Susquehanna River in the United States, U.S. states of New York (state), New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The valley consists of areas that lie along the main branch o ...
, part of the
Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augus ...
drainage basin. The pass formed between Penobscot and Haystack Mountain a few thousand feet to the West was one of the few places a railroad could be envisioned in the 1830s when the fuel crises in eastern cities demanded easier transportation to the Northern Anthracite Coal Fields, which ironically, came to be exploited by the company with a near monopoly in providing coal from the Southern Anthracite region,
Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company The Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company was a mining and transportation company headquartered in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, now known as Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. The company operated from 1818 until its dissolution in 1964 and played an early and i ...
(LC&N, f.1821), which had built both the
Lehigh Canal The Lehigh Canal, or the Lehigh Navigation Canal, is a navigable canal that begins at the mouth of Nesquehoning Creek on the Lehigh River in eastern Pennsylvania. It was built in two sections over a span of twenty years, beginning in 1818. The low ...
, but also the nation's second railway, the
Summit Hill & Mauch Chunk Railroad The Mauch Chunk and Summit Railroad was a coal-hauling railroad in the mountains of Pennsylvania that operated between 1828 and 1932. It was the first operational railway, in the United States, of any substantial length to carry paying passenger ...
. The whole uplands north and west faces over look the
Wyoming Valley The Wyoming Valley is a historic industrialized region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The region is historically notable for its influence in helping fuel the American Industrial Revolution with its many anthracite coal-mines. As a metropolitan are ...
from the southeastern corner near
Hazleton Hazleton may refer to: Places * Hazleton, British Columbia, Canada * Hazleton, Gloucestershire, a village in Gloucestershire, England ** Hazleton long barrows, Neolithic burial mounds at Hazleton, Gloucestershire, England ** Hazleton Abbey, a me ...
towards and through the greater south Wilkes-Barre area. The southern and eastern slopes just give peeks into portions of the Poconos and wider views of the Lehigh Valley descending down to White Haven, for the Poconos technically are left-bank bounded by the Lehigh. The shoulders of the peak, an elevated flat area saddle pass peak today is perhaps best known as the site of many local
television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
and
radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...
station
transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which i ...
antennas. The first broadcast station located there was WIZZ FM followed by WILK FM. Much of the engineering and work on the WIZZ site was conducted by Major Edwin Armstrong, the inventor of several technologies including FM. WIZZ is now WMGS which still broadcasts from the same building erected in 1947 for WIZZ.WILK FM became WILK TV then WNEP TV.
WVIA-TV WVIA-TV (channel 44) is a PBS member television station licensed to Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States, serving Northeastern Pennsylvania. Owned by the Northeast Pennsylvania Educational Television Association, it is sister to NPR member WVI ...
,
WVIA-FM WVIA-FM (89.9 FM) is a non-commercial, public FM radio station licensed to serve Scranton, Pennsylvania and is the National Public Radio member station for Northeastern Pennsylvania. The station is owned by the Northeastern Pennsylvania Educati ...
,
WNEP WNEP-TV (channel 16) is a television station licensed to Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States, serving as the ABC affiliate for Northeastern Pennsylvania. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station maintains studios on Montage Mountain Road in Moosic. ...
,
WYOU WYOU (channel 22) is a television station licensed to Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with ...
,
WBRE WBRE-TV (channel 28) is a television station licensed to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, United States, serving Northeastern Pennsylvania as an affiliate of NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which provides certain services to Scranton-licens ...
, and
WOLF-TV WOLF-TV (channel 56) is a television station licensed to Hazleton, Pennsylvania, United States, serving Northeastern Pennsylvania as an affiliate of the Fox network. It is the flagship property of locally based New Age Media, LLC, and is co-ow ...
are some of the major stations that broadcast from the high elevation there, but the peak was known for another reason in the 19th century, the saddle or pass on its western slope together with its other terrain features were the best place to build a railroad across the south and east faces of the bowl of the
Wyoming Valley The Wyoming Valley is a historic industrialized region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The region is historically notable for its influence in helping fuel the American Industrial Revolution with its many anthracite coal-mines. As a metropolitan are ...
from the 'direct road' down the level water route to the
Delaware Canal The Delaware Division of the Pennsylvania Canal, more commonly called the Delaware Canal, runs for parallel to the right bank of the Delaware River from the entry locks near the mouth of the Lehigh River and terminal end of the Lehigh Canal at E ...
and
Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock (village), New York, Hancock, New York, the river flows for along the borders of N ...
above and alongside the Lehigh Canal, cutting off nearly 100 miles from a rail trip to Philadelphia. Penobscot Hill is about
above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...
.


Analog broadcast tower collapse

WNEP-TV's transmission tower broadcasting the analog signal on channel 16 collapsed on December 16, 2007 due to severe ice, winds, and snow at the transmitter location on Penobscot Knob. The tower collapse also destroyed the transmitter building. No one was injured during the incident. Transmission of the digital signal on channel 49 was restored after a brief interruption of power to the tower supporting the digital transmitter and antenna. WNEP's signal on local cable systems and satellite was restored before the end of the day. The ice and winds on December 16, 2007 also brought down or damaged the towers broadcasting
WYOU-TV WYOU (channel 22) is a television station licensed to Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with ...
,
WBRE-TV WBRE-TV (channel 28) is a television station licensed to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, United States, serving Northeastern Pennsylvania as an affiliate of NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which provides certain services to Scranton-licens ...
(digital),
WVIA-TV WVIA-TV (channel 44) is a PBS member television station licensed to Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States, serving Northeastern Pennsylvania. Owned by the Northeast Pennsylvania Educational Television Association, it is sister to NPR member WVI ...
(analog and digital), and
WCLH WCLH (90.7 FM) is a non-commercial radio station licensed to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, United States, the station serves the Scranton area. The station is currently owned by Wilkes University. The station has obtained a construction permit from ...
which are located within proximity on Penobscot Knob. The WNEP tower completely collapsed. The top of the WVIA tower fell, as well as its digital antenna. The WNEP tower fell across power lines knocking out the power to the other transmitters, except the WBRE analog transmitter, which was on a different line.


References

{{Mountains of Pennsylvania Mountains of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania Mountains of Pennsylvania