In the 1960s, Jim Thorpe, as well as other communities on the Lehigh River were installing sewers and wastewater treatment plants. It would take another generation for fish to return to the Lehigh River.

Charlie Wildoner points to his first insurance office on the ground floor of the Central Hotel. After WWII, he returned to Mauch Chunk and started an insurance business. After the name change to Jim Thorpe, Wildoner became Borough Secretary and later, a four-term County Commissioner. His years in office oversaw major improvements to Jim Thorpe’s infrastructure.

In 1960, the Francis E. Walter Dam was constructed to provide flood control on the Lehigh River. The storage of the water created a more uniform flow rate—reducing the freshets and supplementing the normally sluggish summer flow of the river. This would help to develop fishing and paddling on the river, but it would take another generation to happen.

Part 4 – The Healing Year

Today, Jim Thorpe, the county seat of Carbon County, is a tourist destination. Nestled in a valley flanked by mountains on three sides, a pristine river dividing its major communities and a sparkling creek cascading through a stone archway beneath the downtown, this Victorian town, among the largest listed on the National Historic Register is—well, frankly, romantic.

After the boroughs of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk merged in 1954, the grandiose changes promised by the advocates of the name change, failed to materialize. Other than the publicity generated and the resulting visits by the curious, the newly formed borough of Jim Thorpe remained much the same as it was before the name change. Or was it?

The real benefit of the merger of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk was to create a unified borough with twice the resources of the two separate boroughs. That allowed for a consolidation of services, such as schools and the creation of new services, such as sewage collection and treatment.

JT’s First Borough Secretary

After the boroughs of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk were merged and elections were held to form a new council, Charlie Wildoner was appointed as the first Borough Secretary of Jim Thorpe.

Wildoner, who later became a four-term Carbon County Commissioner, is at the age of 80, still active in the East Jim Thorpe insurance business that he founded after returning from the second World War.

Wildoner grew up in Depression-era East Mauch Chunk. After his father lost his job in 1933, when Railway Express severely reduced operations, the Wildoners went on Welfare and young Charlie raised rabbits for the family meat supply.

The Wildoners remortaged their home but didn’t lose their home to foreclosure as did some of their neighbors. Charlie worked on a huckster truck selling vegetables and fish. He got to know nearly everyone by name in East Mauch Chunk and Mauch Chunk. This recognition would later help him both in business and local politics.

Around 1940, with WWII impending, the Federal Government started to employ people indirectly through industry. The railroads, subsidized by the Federal Government to transport coal, freight, and military equipment, began hiring.

In 1943. at the age of 17-1/2, Wildoner enlisted while his father took a security job guarding the Nesquehoning Bridge.

After the war, the mines and railroads dropped back to their pre-war employment levels. Many of Charlie’s neighborhood friends left the area for jobs in the booming cities of Baltimore, Wilmington and Philadelphia.

Wildoner would have likewise left the area had it not been for a letter he received from the owner of a small insurance agency in Scranton. The man wanted to expand his business into the Jim Thorpe area and Wildoner’s aunt had recommended him. “Next thing I knew, I was training to be an insurance agent,” Wildoner said.

Wildoner rented office space on the first floor of the Central Hotel Building. He was there from 1946 until the building was taken down around 1958.

After East Mauch Chunk and Mauch Chunk united into Jim Thorpe in 1954, and an election for new borough officers was held in November of 1954 and in 1955, Wildoner became the Borough Secretary, a part-time position that made him the first administrator of the new borough. “I was paid $1,200 a year and had to provide my office, equipment, personnel and everything else,” he said.

Changing the Infrastructure

Around 1960, a number of changes to the infrastructure and the environment took place. Pennsylvania had passed a Clean Streams Act in 1937, over thirty years before the Federal Clean Water Act. The Clean Streams Act was intended to stop discharge of pollutants into the streams of the Commonwealth.

Unfortunately, because of the Depression and war years, few municipalities or industries had complied. Jim Thorpe needed to stop discharging its wastes to the streams feeding the Lehigh River. Now that East Mauch Chunk and Mauch Chunk had consolidated, it had sufficient resources to secure grants to sewer the town and build a wastewater treatment plant.

Unfortunately, the best location for the sewer plant turned out to be right in the middle of Canal Lock #1 of the Lehigh Navigation System—a potential heritage site—but tourism was still years off and infrastructure was needed.

Environmental Improvements

In 1960, the Francis E. Walter Dam was constructed to provide flood control on the Lehigh River. The dam, with ancillary projects such as the building of the levies at Weissport, performed its task admirably, nearly eliminating Lehigh River flooding.

The storage of the water created a more uniform flow rate—reducing the freshets and supplementing the normally sluggish summer flow of the river.

Between the curtailment of sewage discharge, the breaching of the Lehigh dams through lack of maintenance, and the relatively continuous flow rate now available through the Walter Dam, the river began to clean itself by increasing its oxygen content and reducing its acidity. Over the following years, the once damaged ecosystem would again support the micro-invertebrates to sustain a fish population.

It would be another generation before fish would return to the Lehigh River. It would also take another generation for the river to be “discovered” as a destination for rafting and kayaking.

Even after the river began to clean-up, dams at Easton, Glendon, Allentown, Northampton and Palmerton blocked the migration of fish. In 1989, the first of a series of fish ladders was installed at Easton. Glendon and Allentown now have fish ladders. The low head dam at Palmerton is slated for removal.

The dam at Northampton is used by Lafarge Cement for impounding water. There have been discussions about replacing the impoundment with a cooling tower or installing a fish ladder.

With the railroads ceasing steam operations and reducing overall operations, the forests were no longer bathed in soot, acidic ash, and hot embers. Over a generation, the mountainsides cleansed themselves, and new trees grew. With the closure of some rail lines, what were once rails, became trails.

Transportation Improvements

In 1957, the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike was completed to Wilkes-Barre. For the first time, there was an efficient connection between Carbon County and the rest of Pennsylvania. With the boom in Allentown and Bethlehem, the activists spurred on by reporter Joe Boyle, pitched Jim Thorpe as a low cost commutable bedroom community to these cities.

The NE Extension had the potential of being the excursion highway to some day bring tourists to the area. The first tourist destination in Jim Thorpe had just opened. The Asa Packer Mansion, after being sealed for over forty years, was reopened by the Jim Thorpe Lion’s Club. The mansion was open but it would take another 15 years until funds could be raised for it restoration. The first lights of tourism were being seen in the borough.

As the 1960s grew to and end, the borough of Jim Thorpe was beginning to receive the benefits of clean air, clean water and healthy forests. Now it was time to wait and plan.

The story continues next month in Part 5 - The Foundation Years—how Agnes McCartney became a community inspiration for planning, restoration and tourism.