DL&W LOCALLY (PART II)

By Kim Williams

Contemporary researchers sometimes encounter unsolved mysteries that were probably not at all confounding “back in the day”. A previous article in Pocono Living about DL&W’s presence in Monroe County ended in the area ‘railroad east’ of Cresco. It’s appropriate, then, to resume telling that story just west of Cresco where a couple of questions are centered. What is the relationship between “Golf Links Farm” and DL&W? And was “Paradise” just a geographic area or the location of a man-made station? Many appropriate archives have been checked but definite answers to those two head-scratchers have not been found.

company to the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1918? Was Golf Links Farm a privately-owned retreat, rented for exclusive use by DL&W executives and their guests? That’s the most believable, verbal report heard about Golf Links Farm. But additional tangible evidence – such as newspaper and courthouse records – about Golf Links Farm has not yet been found.

Golf Links Farm was known to have been on the hillside and creekbanks at the intersection of Rts. 940 and 390 in Paradise Township. Although at least a mile and a half from the nearest station, what was the connection to DL&W that caused Golf Links Farm to be detailed on a Valuation Map submitted by the

Another nearby mystery pertains to “Paradise” – mentioned on the oldest DL&W timetables. Was Paradise just a stopping place or was a stick-built depot located there? The Beers Atlas of 1875 lists seven DL&W “company houses” in an area which is practically undeveloped today – on the east side of Upper Devil’s Hole Road north of Rt. 940. Was one of those houses ever a station? According to the atlas, a “company house” was occupied by a Mutchler family. As verified by a search of tax records, Jon Mutchler (and C. Court) were employed at the time by DL&W as “track walkers”, which included being a tunnel watchman – looking for debris (or other dangers) noticed while walking along the tracks, then alerting any oncoming trains if appropriate. Did you know that from 1857 until 1902 there was a tunnel west of Rt. 940? – in what is now known as The Knob of Mt. Pocono. In 1902, the tunnel’s roof was blasted off resulting in a “cut” and in 1942 rerouting favored a more gradual curve.

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Devil’s Hole is between Cresco and Paradise. Why the name? One guess suggests that after building the railroad, a few laborers gathered to celebrate and to tell ‘war stories’. There were many responses to the question, “Which section was the most difficult to complete?” A worker pointed out that there was a deep gorge east of Paradise that was a devil of a hole to fill. An additional fact about Devil’s Hole Curve is that it was DL&W’s most time-consuming repair site following 1955 flooding, which caused millions of dollars’ worth of damage to the company in the Poconos. Before being known as Devil’s Hole Road crossing, DL&W’s staff photographer, Watson Bunnell, documented the site as Knitter’s Crossing.

Not far west, the railroad currently overpasses Rt. 940. Before the 1930s, the highway was at track level and was known as Smith’s Crossing. Barricades are there now – where Upper and Lower Phoebe Snow Roads formerly accommodated through traffic. A DL&W structure at the east end of Devil’s Hole Curve was Paradise Tank, built in 1904. It was 23’ in diameter,

16’ deep and held more than 50,000 gallons of water, which gravity helped bring from Tank Creek nearly ½-mile away because the closer Devil’s Hole Creek was at the bottom of a 100’ embankment – too much verticality for pumps of the time to contend with.

The next town (and station) west along DL&W’s route in Monroe County is Mt. Pocono, part of Coolbaugh Township until becoming a borough in 1927. Before 1886, DL&W’s timetables referred to the area as “The Forks”. DL&W’s penchant for glamor in its turn-of-the-20th-century improvements was reflected in its ornate Mt. Pocono depot, moved intact on rollers a few hundred feet southeast in 1937 when a short stretch of track was rerouted to eliminate a dangerous-for-southbounders grade crossing after a curve onto Fork St. A fire destroyed the station in 1965. The number of tracks increased from two to three at Mt. Pocono and westward toward Pocono Summit.