Iron Ore on the Mountain

In the spring of 1841, prospectors discovered a large body of iron ore on the southeastern slope of Moosic Mountain, roughly three miles from the settlement then called Harrison. The Scrantons, who needed ore to feed their blast furnace at Slocum Hollow, purchased 3,750 acres of East Mountain land. Oxen hauled the first loads from mines located a short distance south of where Lake Scranton sits today, dragging them down the mountain to the furnaces below.

By 1848, a narrow gauge railroad replaced the oxen. Empty cars were drawn to the mines by mules, while loaded cars returned to the furnace by gravity over 5.5 miles of circuitous road. An 1854 census by E.G. Coursen counted 18 families living at the ore mines: 2 Welsh, 2 Irish, and 14 American. The ore itself proved disappointing. At just 25 percent iron content, it was poor stuff, and the mines were abandoned by 1860.

The Gravity Railroad

The Pennsylvania Coal Company built a gravity railroad between 1847 and 1850, running from Port Griffith near Pittston to Paupack Eddy at Hawley, where coal was transferred to the Delaware and Hudson Canal for shipment to New York markets. The line crossed the lower section of East Mountain. Plane No. 5, an inclined plane near the intersection of Blucher Avenue and Palm Street, used three stationary steam engines to lift loaded coal cars out of Stafford Meadow. The heavy track carried loaded cars toward Bunker Hill, while the light track returned empties toward Rocky Glen and Pittston. John Mack, Ulysses Campbell, and William Seigel served as engineers at Plane No. 5.

The steam engines required water, and the Pennsylvania Coal Company used Mountain Lake as their reservoir, feeding it through a line of water logs to a smaller circular holding pond near the engine house. That pond, remembered by neighborhood children in the 1940s as “Rezzy Pond,” has since disappeared. The gravity railroad operated until 1885, when the Erie and Wyoming Valley Railroad built a steam railroad through East Mountain just west of the old gravity tracks. Much of the Erie line construction was done at night using the new technology of electric lighting.

Mountain Lake

The lake itself, roughly three acres, sits on land that was part of Certified Providence Lot No. 38, a 386-acre parcel first owned by Deacon Ichabod Hopkins of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The Susquehanna Company of Connecticut had surveyed the Township of Providence into 43 lots in 1772. By 1798 the lot belonged to Ebenezer and Benjamin Slocum, who operated an iron forge on Roaring Brook from 1800 to 1822 near what is now downtown Scranton. Joseph Slocum, Ebenezer’s son and the first burgess of Scranton borough, sold the lake to the Pennsylvania Coal Company on July 19, 1852 for $175. The deed mentions the dam and reservoir, placing construction before that date and probably around 1849, when the gravity railroad was being built.

After the gravity road shut down, ownership changed hands quickly. The Pennsylvania Coal Company sold Mountain Lake in 1896 to John H. Jordan and associates, who in turn sold it to Mina Robinson in 1898.

Settlement and the German Community

Before 1890, East Mountain was sparsely settled. The terrain is rugged, rocky, and hilly, with wooded areas scattered throughout and elevations ranging from roughly 650 to 1,400 feet above sea level compared to center city’s 750 feet. East Mountain Road divides the neighborhood into two sides, separating the 12th and 19th Wards.

Many families arrived in the 1880s, a number of them German immigrants. Richard Lucke and George Ludwig settled on East Elm Street; Richard Helbing on Beech Street; the Grunwald family on Birch Street. In February 1898, A.F. Westpfahl and William Hammen walked from the intersection of Willow and Pittston to Ore Mine Spring and described the route as “an almost unbroken stretch of unsettled country.” German culture took hold on the mountain. The Junger Maennerchor Singing Society, the Sunshine Bowling Club, and the Krueger Verein, a group of former German soldiers, gathered by 1902 at Baldner’s Park. Many older residents continued to speak German well into the 1930s and 1940s.

On July 4, 1897, the formal opening of Eagle Park near Mountain Lake drew “hundreds of wagon loads of people,” as the Knights of the Golden Eagle held a patriotic celebration. Fred Baldner had already begun improving the area, building a 10-room cottage, two 65-foot bowling alleys, and a shooting range by March 1898 while the Franz Brothers added a dance pavilion, swings, and bath houses. Baldner’s property included two small ponds for fishing, swimming, and ice making. By summer 1902, Mountain Lake was “fast becoming a popular pleasure resort.”

The neighborhood’s remoteness came at a cost. In October 1898, a building on Blucher Avenue known as the “Florida house” burned down. It had served as a grocery, meat market, restaurant, and dwelling for owner Fred Peterson, and the nearest fire call box was almost a mile away at Crown Avenue and Beech Street.

Coal Mining

Coal was mined commercially near Mountain Lake from at least 1893, when the Mountain Lake Land and Coal Company operated a breaker at Blucher Avenue and Birch Street under president L.J. Siebecker. The Mountain Lake Coal Company followed with a drift mine from 1902 to 1908, producing about 3,500 tons per year with 17 to 22 employees and 5 horses or mules.

The Spruks Coal Company was the largest of the three operations. Working the area from 1914 to 1918, it employed 48 men at peak and shipped 17,177 tons on the Erie Railroad in 1916. A Pennsylvania Mine Inspection report from that year notes that Spruks installed a gasoline engine, engine house, office, scale house, mule barn, and a hospital with equipment. A track ran down Willow Street to meet the Erie line, and coal is still visible along the “Bridle Path” running from the Mattes Community Center to Mountain Lake.

Production declined after World War I. Decades later, the mines left one more mark: in 1988, serious subsidence was discovered beneath the Mountain Lake dam, and the Office of Surface Mining filled a large void with more than 200 cubic yards of concrete to stabilize it.

Lake Scranton

Lake Scranton was created between 1895 and 1898 by damming Stafford Meadow Brook, a stream 11.2 miles long with a 14.1-square-mile watershed named for Captain John Stafford, who started a sawmill on its banks in 1790. Timothy Burke, who had also worked on the Croton Aqueduct in New York and the Elmhurst Reservoir, built the dam. Steam shovels and railroads aided the construction. About 14 miles of scenic roads were laid out at the same time and opened to the public, turning the reservoir and its surroundings into a destination.

The lake covers 213 acres at an elevation of 1,280 feet, bordering East Mountain’s eastern edge. Originally called “Burned Bridge Reservoir,” it is now owned by Pennsylvania American Water Company, which uses it to supply drinking water to Scranton. A 3.5-mile running track surrounds it today.

Schools

John Bartram School No. 37, a two-room elementary school, opened in 1894 to serve the growing neighborhood. Kathryn Mitchell served as one of its principals and Andy Cronkey was a respected custodian. Two rooms were later added, bringing capacity to 120 students, though the school could not handle the mountain alone. North of East Mountain Road, students went to Whittier School (No. 2) and Audubon School (No. 42), and from 1918 to 1935 a one-room portable school called McKinley absorbed overflow during a period of high city population. Other students attended parochial schools such as St. Mary’s on River Street.

John Bartram closed around 1975. The building became the home of the Irish Cultural Society.

Churches

Holy Name of Jesus Church grew from a petition that East Mountain residents sent to the Diocese in 1938. Construction cost $35,853, and the church was dedicated in November 1939. It served the neighborhood for more than 80 years, though it operated without a resident pastor for its final 15 and became part of St. John Neumann Parish in 2010. The last Mass was celebrated on July 17, 2022 at 8 a.m., after which Robert and Susan Barry locked the doors.

Blucher Avenue Baptist Church and Trinity M.E. Church on Brook Street both formed in the 1930s, but neither survives. In later decades, Temple Hesed and Grace Reformed Episcopal Church relocated to the Oakmont area north of Route 307.

Waldorf Park

The German-American Federation organized Waldorf Park in 1906, electing Fred Wagner as its first president. Peter Stipp built a rathskeller and dance pavilion on the grounds, structures that gave way to a larger clubhouse completed in 1939 as the park grew rapidly and added acres of land. Clam bakes and “ethnic days” drew crowds for decades, and Waldorf Park remains active.

Robinson Park

In 1911, Mina Robinson donated more than 24 acres to the City of Scranton, stipulating that “land and lake shall be used for park purposes only and maintained by the city.” The gift memorialized her sons Edmund and Robert. Today Robinson Park covers 30.42 acres at 98 Mountain Lake Road, making it the second-largest city park after Nay Aug. Mountain Lake is the only lake contained within a Scranton city park.

The park’s early years were modest. A 1918 report noted spending on removing underbrush, constructing walks, and building about 1,000 feet of seven-foot-wide walkways, while trees killed by chestnut blight were removed. A 1927 report described Robinson Park as “far removed from the great center of population,” used “chiefly by hikers, fishermen, and ice-skating in the winter months.” Park watchmen included Charles Schumacher (1916 to 1934), Fred Bonnert (1934 to 1946), and John Warner (from 1946). Bonnert, a World War I medic who was popular but strict, kept a small shack by the lake with benches and a pot belly stove where skaters could warm up. Fifteen to 20 people could squeeze inside.

An artesian well was added in 1942 and an electric pump and pump house in 1943. In 1977 and 1978, a $182,768 city Community Development project built an activities building, parking, a volleyball court, basketball court, and playground for the Lackawanna County ARC.

A $1.1 million renovation reached its ribbon cutting on April 28, 2025, funded by a DCNR C2P2 grant of $481,600, ARPA funds of $502,884.50, and $141,078.06 from the city. The project added a playground, multipurpose courts, a one-eighth-mile walking path, accessible parking, a fishing dock, and a kayak launch.

Scouting and Recreation at the Lake

Girl Scout Camp Laurel operated at Mountain Lake, where Mrs. Earl Rounds (Marian Ford) served as nature counselor in 1936. Three sections of the lake were roped off for swimming at different depths, with a floating dock. Camp Laurel relocated around 1950 to Blue Shutters Road in Roaring Brook Township and operated until 2010.

Boy Scout Troop No. 16, based at Hickory Street Presbyterian Church, organized in 1915 and built a cabin on East Mountain in 1930 known as the “Joe Grieser Cabin.” Fire destroyed it in 1965. Troop No. 10, meeting at the Mattes Community Center, hosted an area-wide jamboree at Mountain Lake around 1960 that drew about 100 scouts.

The Mountain Lake Hunting and Fishing Club, chartered in 1901, stocked the lake heavily. In May 1928 alone, 30,000 fish arrived from the state hatchery at Pleasant Mount: 13,000 wall-eyed pike and 15,000 yellow perch. The previous year, 83,000 fish had been released.

Winter brought the skaters. During the 1950s the entire lake was cleared, drawing crowds from South Side, Petersburg, and the Hill Section. By the 1970s, an ice hockey rivalry had formed between East Scranton and East Mountain teams.

Transportation

Access to East Mountain improved in stages but remained a defining challenge. Traffic reached the neighborhood via River Street (I-81 Exit 184) or the Scranton-Pocono Highway (Route 307), which extends from Moosic Street eastward past Lake Scranton. Elmhurst Boulevard was completed in 1894. The Laurel Line interurban established service to the mountain via its Dunmore line by 1905, with Waldorf Station located near the present I-81 north entrance ramp, close to the Salvation Army store parking lot. By 1930, trains ran at least once every hour from early morning to 11 p.m., with half-hour intervals at rush hours.

The Scranton-Pocono Highway (Route 307), promoted by the Lackawanna Motor Club and built with federal funds, was dedicated in September 1935. The Laurel Line stopped running in the 1950s, but by then more residents owned automobiles, and COLTS buses now serve the neighborhood.

The construction of Interstate 81 in the mid-1960s cut a hard line between South Side and East Mountain. Foot paths that residents had relied on for decades, including the Bridle Path and the 100-Steps Path, were severed along with the streets that had connected the two neighborhoods.

Businesses and Institutions

The neighborhood supported its own small commercial strip. Jack and Dora Strange ran a grocery store on Froude Avenue while Alf Schommer operated a German butcher shop on Blucher Avenue, and Moltke Avenue had the Frable Economy Store at No. 630 and the Waldorf Store at No. 401. Cox Sheet Metal Company, founded on Moltke Avenue by James W. Cox in 1922, was among the longer-running businesses. Printcraft Card Company started on East Elm Street in 1940, relocated to Maple Street in the 1950s, and became part of Herff Jones around 1970.

Around 1912, the Scranton Municipal Hospital for Communicable Diseases opened on Florida Avenue at the outer edge of the residential area. It treated diphtheria, scarlet fever, smallpox, typhoid, and influenza, and many polio patients passed through in the 1940s and 1950s. The city sold the hospital in 1958, and it became a nursing home.

Community Life

As late as the 1930s and 1940s, East Mountain had few paved roads or public sewers. Families picked blueberries and huckleberries for their own use or to sell, small farms persisted, and a few horses still remained. The Mattes Community Center, a WPA project dedicated in 1937, became a neighborhood anchor where Boy Scout Troop No. 1 met and Hank and Donald Sayers showed movies on Tuesday nights. That same year, Pen-y-Bryn, the castle-like home of Colonel Louis A. Watres just north of the Scranton-Pocono Highway, was destroyed by fire.

The postwar decades reshaped the mountain. Friendship House relocated from downtown to Derby Avenue in 1960, and the Elks Club moved to the former Stoehr residence on the Scranton-Pocono Highway, a building that later became a Geisinger Medical Group office. The former Watres land was mined and then sold for development, producing the Oakmont Garden Apartments and new homes, while south of Route 307 the brick houses of Yesu Development went up around 1957. Lutherwood senior housing was built across from Lake Scranton. A firehouse opened between Seymour and Peller Avenues in 1964.

East Mountain Today

East Mountain is one of Scranton’s nine official city districts. Its German roots still show in the demographics: 31.7 percent of residents claim German ancestry, followed by Irish at 21.3 percent, Polish at 16.4 percent, and Italian at 15.4 percent. Most of the housing stock dates to 1940 through 1969, and the neighborhood ranks as upper-middle-income with a 0.0 percent childhood poverty rate.

Oakmont Park at 200 Debbie Drive received a $447,496 renovation that opened in May 2024. The park had previously been described as “mostly concrete.” Robinson Park’s $1.1 million overhaul, completed in April 2025, gave the neighborhood its first kayak launch and fishing dock on Mountain Lake.