Honesdale PA

 One weekend Bob, Mom and I drove to Honesdale, PA, about 1 1/2 hours from Tunkhannock to visit the Wayne County Museum, which was highly recommended in some guidebook I read somewhere of neat out-of-the-way places to see.  Honesdale was famous as the site of a 110 mile canal to the Delaware River to deliver coal to New York City, which was connected by gravity railroads to the coal fields in PA.  Two brothers who were uniform makers in Philadelphia were paid for providing uniforms during the Revolutionary War with land claims near Carbondale, PA.  They recognized that there was coal in the area and quietly bought up all sorts of claims.  They couldn't deliver coal to Philadelphia which was provided by closer fields, so built a canal (with 108 locks, each operated by a person who lived at the lock and in addition to opening and closing the docks provisioned the boats).  At one time Honesdale had the largest pile of coal in the world.  The coal had to be transported from Carbondale and points west of a large mountain.  They sent an engineer to England to look at locomotives and he ordered four, including the Sturbridge Lion (replica above).  Unfortunately, after it was shipped up the canal by boat it turned out to be half a ton too heavy for the tracks and was never used, though it was run in Honesdale, the first steam locomotive in the US.  It generated all of 9 horsepower.  To get to coal to Honesdale they relied on gravity railroads.  These tracks used stationary steam engines to haul the loaded cars up a grade and gravity or mules to go down or on the flats.  Ultimately the tracks went all the way to Pittston, near Scranton.  The museum had a fascinating look at the effect of the railroad and canal on the communities.

 The museum contained an eclectic collection of stuff (Boy Scouts, Indian arrowheads, pictures of historical buildings, etc.)  This is a device that was used in a department store in Honesdale to collect and relay payments from areas of the store to the cashier.

 Behind the museum was a collection of railroad cars and this snow plow.

Honesdale was a very wealthy town and as a result has a lot of gorgeous buildings.  This is the county courthouse on the square.  Honesdale also had an underwear manufacturing mill that employed upwards of 6,000 people until its demise in 1960, glass cutting and manufacturing facilities (that provided crystal to the Whitehouse), and other industry.  We ate lunch in a funky diner and walked around town.  It was definitely worth the trip.