Haystack Mountain (Pennsylvania)
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Haystack Mountain (Pennsylvania), is an otherwise non-descript 1871 ftNational Geographic topo map dated 04/11/07 titled 'CNJ
Ashley Planes Ashley Planes was a historic freight cable railroad situated along three separately powered inclined plane sections located between Ashley, Pennsylvania at the foot, and via the Solomon cutting the yard in Mountain Top over above and initially bu ...
On Topo Map 5322855.jpg located online somewhere doing Railroad research. Search Ashley Planes will likely find source. LAT and LNG picked off using measures, ratios and rectangles in graphics program to interpolate scales at margin of topo map. Altitude of peak is labeled on the source map.
peak forming the steep southwestern faces of the Solomon Gap mountain pass's
saddle The saddle is a supportive structure for a rider of an animal, fastened to an animal's back by a girth. The most common type is equestrian. However, specialized saddles have been created for oxen, camels and other animals. It is not k ...
connecting and dividing 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 ...
from 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 ...
. On the opposite side of the saddle, which forms an important multi-modal transport corridor is the much higher
Penobscot Mountain Penobscot Knob, also Penobscot Mountain, is a summit located in the western fringe of the Poconos nearest to Mountain Top, Pennsylvania which in the Solomon Gap pass below it lies an important multi-modal transportation corridor. At one time bef ...
. The peak is part of a ridge descending southwesterly toward Hazelton and within sight of the western fringe of the Poconos while being located today within the incorporated boundaries of
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 ...
. Through the Solomon Gap pass northeast and below it lies an important multi-modal transportation corridor channeling a busy railroad right of way and through which PA Route 309 and PA Route 437 funnel paralleling the pioneering railway which built the area. At one time before incorporation, Mountain Top and the saddle of the pass was known by the Amerindian name Penobscot, which name has also been given the opposite higher peak,
Penobscot Mountain Penobscot Knob, also Penobscot Mountain, is a summit located in the western fringe of the Poconos nearest to Mountain Top, Pennsylvania which in the Solomon Gap pass below it lies an important multi-modal transportation corridor. At one time bef ...
. Together, the peaks and pass 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
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, ...
and the Wyoming and
Susquehanna Valley The Susquehanna Valley is a region of low-lying land that borders the Susquehanna River in the U.S. states of New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The valley consists of areas that lie along the main branch of the river, which flows from Up ...
, 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 Augu ...
drainage basin. Because of the strong barriers of the local East-West oriented ridge lines of the local Ridge and Valley Appalachians chain, the Solomon Gap pass formed between the two peaks 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. Ironically, the company forming the railroad which cut over 100 miles off the trip from Philadelphia to Wilkes-Barre was the same entity with a near monopoly in providing coal from the Southern Anthracite region, Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (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 LC&N company seemed to relish taking on tasks which left others running, and developed the technology to make the task happen. 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 ...
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 medi ...
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 prominence of Haystack Mountain is about above sea level, and wholly within the incorporated limits of Mountain Top where it is today, mostly surrounded by residences. In the 1870s unhappy with the navigation choke hold into the Wyoming Valley various eastern business interests had little trouble raising capital to form a competing rail company, the
Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad built in the Northeastern United States to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Pennsylvania. The railroad was authorized on April 21, 1846 for freight and transportation of passengers, goods, ...
to challenge the LC&N operating subsidiary,
Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad The Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad is a defunct railroad that operated in eastern Pennsylvania during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The company was a subsidiary of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N), but for much of its lifetim ...
(LVRR). Utilizing the advantage of new higher power locomotives, the new-fangled dynamite technology, and some clever surveying of alternative routes, the LVRR quickly built a parallel road from New Jersey, across the Delaware, and up along the Lehigh & Susquehanna's trackage all the way to the connecting junctions managed by shortline rail companies in the Avoca/Moosic area. But the LVRR also split its tracks in Mountaintop, crossed over and above the LH&S tracks onto Haystack Mountain, which branch line traversed down to Hazelton and South Wilkes-Barre, then looped back through the heart of the municipalities of Wilkes-Barre to loop back on itself. A northwestern spur connected to Buffalo, New York and ran an express service, the famous Black Diamond Express from New York City to Buffalo, through Wilkes-Barre down the slopes descending into the valley cut into Haystack Mountain's flanks.


References

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