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DELAWARE
WATER GAP
As a sunflower seed needs fertile earth, an adequate supply of water,
mild temperatures, and plenty of sunlight to grow, so too, a resort
community, in order to flower, requires specific conditions. For Delaware
Water Gap, those conditions existed during the last half of the nineteenth,
and the first third of the twentieth centuries. During that period,
America's vacation habits and the limitations of transportation, coupled
with the scenic beauty of the area and the entrepreneurial spirit of
some local residents, conspired to transform the tiny borough into
the heart of one of the most popular inland resort areas in the eastern
United States. Each summer during that period its year-round population
of about 400 was augmented by approximately 2500 visitors, many of
whom stayed the entire season.
Life before indoor plumbing, super highways, and air-conditioning
is hard to imagine for those of us who did not experience it. Summer,
for city dwellers especially, must have been unpleasant and even unhealthful.
Depending on individual economic circumstances, urbanites responded
to unbearable summer heat in a number of ways. The wealthiest escaped
for the entire season to Bar Harbor, Newport, or to other playgrounds
of the rich. Working class and lower middle class Philadelphians traveled
to Atlantic City to enjoy the cool sea breezes and the ever-present
holiday atmosphere. For New Yorkers, Coney Island served as the destination
of choice every year. Not everyone, though, preferred the excitement
and noise of these two seaside playgrounds. Many more prosperous middle-class
city dwellers opted for the refreshing mountain air and the scenic
beauty of America's inland resort areas, one of which was Delaware
Water Gap, Pennsylvania.
The Settlement of Delaware Water Gap
In 1793, when Antoine Dutot arrived in the area with the intention
of founding a city, the vicinity just north of the geological formation
known as the Delaware Water Gap, had been the site of human habitation
for thousands of years. Known as the Minisink by the Lenni-Lenapes,
it is estimated that the area was first inhabited by the Paleo-Indians
as early as 10,000 to 12,000 B.C. When the first white men reached
the region in 1614, they encountered the Minsi tribe of the Wolf Clan
of the Lenni-Lenape Nation (the Lenni-Lenape were commonly referred
to as the Delaware Indians because they ranged from the headwaters
of the Delaware River to the shores of the Delaware Bay).
The Minisink was first explored by Europeans in 1614 by three travelers
from New Amsterdam who descended from the Hudson River. They were followed
in 1620 by a second group of Dutchmen who, in their report, referred
to mineral deposits, especially copper, present in the region. At some
point subsequent to the 1620 visit, the Dutch started to mine the copper
(a reference to copper ore mined in the Minisink appeared in a 1641
journal article originating in the New Netherlands). In order to get
the ore from the mines (which still exist about three miles north of
the gap on the New Jersey side of the river) to Esopus (Kingston, New
York), the mining company built a road connecting the two. It was along
this one hundred mile-long road that the first settlers reached the
Minisink.
Copper mining ceased in 1664 when the Dutch surrendered New York to
the English. The Copper Mine Road continued to be used, though, by
Dutch, English, French, and even some Spanish and German settlers who
colonized the eastern side of the river north of the Gap. The first
settler on the west bank of the Delaware River in the Minisink was
Nicolas Depui who, in 1727, moved his family from the Hudson Valley
to present day Shawnee.
Due to the difficulty of travel through the Gap (the mountains reached
right down to the river leaving no room for a road or path), settlers
in the Minisink knew little or nothing of settlements to the south.
In 1730, Thomas Penn, son of William, sent Nicholas Scull on an expedition
from Philadelphia to the Minisink to investigate rumors of settlements
there. As a result of Scull's visit, Depui was required to repurchase
land from William Allen (who had obtained it from Penn) that he had
previously bought from the Indians. After Scull's sojourn, settlers
from south of the mountains began to travel into the area. (Northern-bound
settlers reached the area via Wind Gap.) It was not until the end of
the eighteenth century, however, that the flow from the south eclipsed
that of the north.
Dutotsburg
A settler from present-day Albany, Daniel Brodhead, moved his family
to the area in 1737. Settling in present-day East Stroudsburg, Brodhead
lent his name to the new town of Dansbury. The Indian wars of mid-eighteenth
century led to a thinning of settlers as many moved away to avoid hostilities.
By the time another settler, Jacob Stroud, returned to the area after
the Revolutionary War, the Indian threat had been eliminated. Stroud
was able to acquired several abandoned farms at very little cost. By
1806, he owned so much land that the area in which he lived began to
be called Stroudsburg.
Delaware Water Gap remained unsettled long after settlements nearby
had grown. In 1793, Antoine Dutot, a French plantation owner in Santa
Domingo, fled the slave uprising there and headed toward Philadelphia.
Upon arriving in the Quaker city, Dutot was advised to travel up the
Delaware River to the Gap, where he purchased a large tract of land
and began to lay out an inland city. He erected a dozen or more wooden
buildings, designated a triangular piece of ground for a market, and
named the new town after himself. Dutotsburg never became the bustling
city its founder had envisioned, however. People moving into the tiny
borough built their own houses and Dutot's structures fell into disrepair.
Eventually Dutotsburg became known as the borough of Delaware Water
Gap, probably in order to benefit from the inherent advertising benefits
associated with the well-known geological formation.
Early Growth of the Resorts
The natural beauty of the Delaware Water Gap proved to be an attraction
to people traveling through the area. As early as 1820, visitors began
staying in the small town where they roomed with local families in
order to enjoy the scenery. Conscious of the possibilities, Dutot began
constructing a small hotel overlooking the Delaware River in 1829.
By 1832, however, he had run out of money and sold the incomplete building
to Samuel Snyder. Snyder enlarged and completed the hotel which he
named the Kittatinny. The new structure could accommodate twenty-five
people and was filled the first season it opened. William A. Brodhead
rented the Kittatinny from 1841 to 1851, when he bought it and increased
its capacity to sixty. Over the next fifteen years the Kittatinny's
size was increased on four separate occasions, first under William
Brodhead, and, after 1857, under its new manager, Luke W. Brodhead.
By 1860, the hotel could accommodate two hundred and fifty guests.
The success of the Kittatinny led to the establishment of other hotels.
In addition, families opened their homes to visitors as a means of
augmenting their income. At least one private home gradually grew into
a full-fledged resort (the River Farm). By the Civil War, Delaware
Water Gap's popularity as a resort area was becoming well-known throughout
the northeastern United States. The strained economy of the war years
led to a decline in the budding resort industry, but the reconstruction
period found city dwellers once again traveling to the Gap. By 1867,
the Brainerd, the Lenape, the Glenwood, the River Farm, and the Arlington,
had joined the Kittatinny in offering accommodations to visitors. On
June 20th, 1872, a new hotel that rivaled the Kittatinny in size and
splendor, the Water Gap House, opened its doors.
Water Gap's Popularity
"Delaware Water Gap was the second largest inland resort town
in the United States after the Civil War (ranking behind Saratoga Springs,
N.Y.), and its clientele were the upper classes of Philadelphia and
New York." So says one writer about the area. Although such rankings
are hard to quantify, it is clear that the Gap enjoyed a national reputation
for its resorts and drew prominent financiers, politicians, and society
people from the time of the Civil War until World War I. Even a United
States President visited the town (Theodore Roosevelt visited the Water
Gap House on August 2, 1910). A publisher of world famous guide books
in the nineteenth century included Delaware Water Gap among the fifteen
scenic marvels of the United States. In 1906, an advertising pamphlet
estimated that over one-half million people visited the Gap annually.
Unlike today's vacationer who may stay at a hotel for only one night
or perhaps a week, Victorian Americans would often spend an entire
season at their favorite resort -- no doubt as a means of escaping
the insufferable summer heat in the city. It was the custom among those
families who could afford it to pack mom and the kids off to a hotel
in the country for the entire summer where the father would join them
on weekends. Summer visitors returned to the same resort year after
year, calling it their second home.
What did the Gap have that attracted city visitors? According to Luke
W. Brodhead, one of the managers of the Kittatinny and author of a
book about the history and legends of the Gap:
The principal sources of amusement and recreation are the rambles
over miles of mountain paths with vistas of great beauty opening at
frequent intervals; carriage drives in many directions over a picturesque
and interesting country; steamboat and rowboat service, and good bass
fishing on the river in season and trout fishing in the adjacent streams.
"Perhaps the featuring asset of the Gap, aside from its beautiful
gorge, through which flows the placid Delaware, is its health giving
atmosphere, which permeates everywhere and which in itself has given
the region much of its charm and popularity." This claim was made
by an author extolling the beauty of the area in a book published in
1897. Whether the "atmosphere" in the region is any more
healthful than anywhere else is, of course, open to debate. Nevertheless,
that theme was played repeatedly in advertisements of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. "The atmosphere is pure and dry,
always cool evenings, and even at mid-day seldom so warm as to be uncomfortable.
The whole region is free from mosquitoes or malaria." (This from
an 1895 book.) As early as 1866, the local newspaper, The Jeffersonian
Republican , ran a story reporting that the hotels and boarding houses
were full; thus city people were escaping the danger of cholera. In
1873, Doctor F. Wilson Hurd decided that Monroe County would be an
ideal spot for his Wesley Water Cure. The Water Cure of Experiment
Mills (later the Water Gap Sanitarium) was built near the present Quality
Inn just off the Marshall's Creek exit of Rt. 80, and was instrumental
in increasing the influx of visitors to the area.
For the last quarter of the nineteenth century the Gap's popularity
earned it repeated mention in The New York Times . During the summer
season, four to five articles a month appeared in that paper written
by a correspondent in the town.
In order for families to take advantage of Delaware Water Gap as a
vacation spot, good transportation was needed to insure that the patriarch
could travel back to the city for the week's labor. In the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, good transportation (inland) meant railroads.
Transportation to the Gap:
Roads
As we have seen, the natural barrier of the Blue Mountains led to
early settlement of the area by people moving south from the Hudson
River valley instead of north from Philadelphia. Prior to 1800, when
Abram B. Giles constructed a wagon road through it, the Delaware Water
Gap was not considered a practical passage north or south. Only rough
Indian trails wound round the base of the mountains on both sides of
the river. (A main Indian trail, upon which a road was later built
by colonists, wound through what is now called the Wind Gap as it passed
over the mountains.) Shortly after Giles completed his road, a visitor
traveled the route and described it as a:
wagon road leading between the mountain's edge & the river & which
all the labour of the inhabitants have been ineffectual to make more
than about 8 feet wide or to clear from excessive roughness as it leads
over one rough hillock to another the whole distance.
Around 1799, in anticipation of the completion of the road, Benjamin
Bonham constructed a small inn along it -- the first in a town later
to become famous for its hotels.
Antoine Dutot built a road in 1798 from his saw mill, below where
the Kittatinny once stood, to the site of his planned city. A few years
later he obtained a charter for a toll-road and extended his existing
road to the River Farm where it connected with one running from Shawnee
to Tatamy Gap. Although he set up a toll-gate along the way, he had
trouble collecting tolls. In 1823, his road was superseded by one built
by the state.
In order to meet the needs of the growing county, roads were widen
and improved, and stagecoach lines began to operate. By 1846, a passenger
and mail stagecoach stopped in Stroudsburg on the way to Milford from
Easton three times a week. By that time, the road through the Gap was
sufficiently improved to carry stagecoach travel.
Railroads
A common ingredient in the success of the towns of Delaware Water
Gap, Atlantic City, and Coney Island as resorts was the existence of
railroads. The introduction of rail service to these areas resulted
in their increased popularity (in fact, Atlantic City did not exist
until a rail line was built to the New Jersey shore).
In the early nineteenth century, Henry Drinker, owner of large tracts
of land in northeastern Pennsylvania, dreamed of a rail line between
the coal fields of Lackawanna County and the Delaware Water Gap. Drinker
hoped to connect his line with one into New York, thus improving the
marketability of the anthracite coal that had been discovered in the
valley. It was not until March 11, 1853, however, that the Delaware,
Lackawanna and Western Railroad was formed from the consolidation of
two smaller lines. On January 21, 1856, the first train ran from Scranton
to the Delaware River five miles below the Gap. It could go no further
because the Warren Railroad in New Jersey was not yet open. By May
13 of that year, though, trains could travel from Great Bend (north
of Scranton) to New York (actually the route terminated at Elizabethport,
New Jersey, opposite the northwest tip of Staten Island). The Southern
Division of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad was officially
opened on May 27, 1856. A train leaving New York at 7:30 in the morning
arrived in Delaware Water Gap at 1:15 that afternoon, a trip of almost
six hours.
With the intention of gaining access to a terminal closer to Manhattan,
the D.L.& W. signed a lease with the Morris & Essex Railroad
on December 10, 1868. The lease provided that the D.L.& W. would
take over the Morris and Essex on December 31, 1868; thus Hoboken,
right across the Hudson from New York City, became the D.L.& W.'s
New York station. A ferry ran from the Hoboken terminal to the foot
of Christopher Street, directly across the river in Manhattan, and
to the foot of Barclay Street which is further downtown. The changes
cut over an hour from the trip to the Water Gap.
In 1900, William Truesdale, president of the D.L.& W., perceived
that a new route was needed across New Jersey to forestall competitors
from gaining the upper hand in passenger traffic. During 1906 and 1907,
three studies were conducted to examine the feasibility of shortening
the trip from New York to the Gap. It was decided to build a new route
from Lake Hopatcong to Slateford, Pennsylvania. The following account,
published in a history of the D.L.& W., illustrates the enormity
of the new line (commonly called the New Jersey Cut-Off):
The country to be crossed was anything but level.
Valleys and roads ran north and south; the railroad ran east and
west. There were to be no grade crossings. The new route would require
28.5 miles of new track, two large viaducts, and a fill three miles
long and from 75 to 140 feet high. West of the Pequest fill,
as it was named, were six miles of continuous cuts and fills. There
were thirteen fills, most of which were about fifty feet high, and
with fifteen cuts with the big Cut west of Johnsonburg being a maximum
of one hundred feet deep and a mile long.
Truesdale staked the future of his railroad on the success of the
new line. Finished on December 24, 1911, at a cost of $11,065,511.43,
the new route was a fast and smooth downhill run of twenty-eight miles.
It cut eleven miles and twenty-seven minutes off the trip from New
York.
In 1895, it cost $2.55 for a ticket from New York to the Gap. Ten
years later, it cost twenty cents less. By 1933, the price was up to
$2.82. With faster trains and more efficient scheduling, the time it
took the train to reach Water Gap from Barclay Street gradually decreased.
In 1959, it took just under three hours. Passenger service on the D.L.& W.
ended on January 5, 1970.
Another railroad company, the New York, Susquehanna & Western,
provided passenger service to the area. Starting on October 24, 1882,
the N.Y.,S.& W. ran from Weehawken, New Jersey and stopped in North
Water Gap (Minisink Hills), and in Stroudsburg (near the present V.F.W.).
The line crossed the Delaware just north of the Route 80 toll bridge
(its stone supports can still be seen in the river). N.Y.,S.& W.
service to the Poconos ended in 1940.
Passenger service from Philadelphia to the Gap was available on the
Belvidere-Delaware Railroad (Trenton to Belvidere). Sometime around
1850, the Belvidere-Delaware extended its track to Manuka Chunk where
it connected with the Warren Railroad. Passenger service was provided
until October 4, 1947. (The line had earlier been absorbed by the Pennsylvania
Railroad.)
Trolleys
On July 10, 1907, The Mountain View Line, connecting Delaware Water
Gap with existing trolley lines in Stroudsburg, began operations. During
the school year, the trolley served as a school bus, charging students
fifteen cents each way.
Meanwhile, trackage was being laid south of the Blue Mountain by the
Lehigh Valley Traction Company that would eventually reach the Water
Gap resorts. In connection with that company, on August 28, 1905, the
Bangor and Portland Traction Company entered Portland from the west,
having underpassed the Delaware, Lackawanna and Delaware tracks after
a three year conflict. Railroad companies were reluctant to allow trolleys,
their competitors, to cross rail lines. The plan was to continue the
line into Stroudsburg, but the Lehigh and New England Railroad Company
refused permission for trolley tracks to be laid across their rails,
and the extension to the resorts was abandoned. Tourists from Philadelphia
could travel north on the trolley to Nazareth where they had to change
cars. From Nazareth they traveled on the Slate Belt Electric Railway
Company's cars to Bangor where they switched cars again to those of
the Bangor and Portland Traction Company. At Portland, passengers could
ride a bus into Water Gap, or they could take the D.L.& W. The
first "Delaware Water Gap Limited" left Chestnut Hill at
9:30 on the morning of July 17, 1908, and reached the Gap six hours
and forty minutes later.
Wanting to gain access to the resorts at Water Gap for their "Liberty
Bell" route, the Lehigh Valley Traction Company invested $50,000
in the Water Gap and Portland Street Railway Company. On February 21,
1911, portions of the mountain at the narrowest part of the Gap were
dynamited to permit space for the tracks. By October, trolleys were
running between Stroudsburg and Portland on the newly created Stroudsburg,
Water Gap and Portland Railway Company. Open, screen-sided double truck
cars painted lemon-yellow were in service in the summer and enclosed
cars were used the rest of the year.
On April 1, 1910, the Lehigh Valley Traction Company announced an
arrangement with the Philadelphia and Western Railway Company to use
part of its line. The use of this track with its terminal at the 69th
Street Station in Upper Darby was part of a larger upgrading of the
entire rail system. By 1912, passengers could make the entire trip
from Upper Darby to Portland without changing cars. Passengers dined
during scheduled dinner stops at hotels in either Allentown, Rittersville,
Bethlehem, or Nazareth. Alterations made to the cars on the Water Gap
route for the comfort of passengers on the long ride included black
leather seats with arm rests; baggage racks; carpeted floors; iced
drinking water facilities; a uniformed "tour guide" who pointed
out points of interest along the way; and a flashy, newly painted Liberty
Bell Limited sign. At Portland, where the Lehigh and New England still
refused a right-of-way to the trolley, passengers had to pick up their
bags, get off one trolley and walk across the L.N.& E. tracks,
and then board another trolley for the ride into Delaware Water Gap.
Direct service to Portland was short-lived. Before the 1913 vacation
season opened, continuous service on the Water Gap route was canceled.
Passengers had to change cars in Allentown.
In addition to the Liberty Bell Route, the Delaware Valley Route of
the Philadelphia and Easton Transit company ran a trolley from Philadelphia
to the Gap between the years 1908 to 1915. The journey took six hours
and cost $2.40 round-trip. North of Easton the line was called the
Blue Mountain Route and continued in service until November 25, 1926.
From Bangor to Portland the route shared L.V.T. Company's tracks.
In 1917, the Stroudsburg, Water Gap and Portland Railway Company became
the Stroudsburg Traction Company. The growing popularity of the automobile,
however, rang the death-knell of the trolleys. On March 20, 1926, the
Bangor-Portland was abandoned and the right-of-way was sold to Northhampton
County for construction of a new highway between Portland and Mount
Bethel. In November of the same year, the lease of the right-of-way
between Portland and Water Gap, which was owned by the D.L.& W.,
was canceled thus ending service between the two towns. Stroudsburg
Traction Company ceased operations in 1928 after trying unsuccessfully
to compete with growing bus lines. The last trolley in Stroudsburg
ran on September 8. In commemoration several hundred people turned
out to witness the end of an era. A local band played "The Old
Grey Mare Ain't What She Used To Be."
The Mountain Echo
For a time, beginning in 1879, Delaware Water Gap had its own newspaper.
Called The Mountain Echo , the small, seasonal paper focused on activities
at the hotels and on local places of interest. The editor was local
photographer Jesse A. Graves. One of the services dutifully carried
out by the periodical was the listing of all the guests staying at
the various resorts.
The Hotels
A 1909 guide to summer resorts in the area had this to say about Delaware
Water Gap:
Its quota of hotels is second to none in the Unites States. They compare
favorably with those in any other section of the country in size and
attractiveness and are comparable only to the very finest in the matter
or cuisine.
It is difficult to accurately determine how many hotels operated in
the Gap. A search in surviving pamphlets and newspapers for advertisements
reveal evidence of only the larger establishments. In addition, as
some hotels changed owners, they also changed names, further clouding
the issue. Nevertheless, it is estimated that the town of 400 permanent
residents could accommodate over 2500 people. Long-time Water Gap resident
Casey Drake remembers that, as a boy, the town was so crowded in the
summer that it was often difficult to walk down the street.
The two largest and perhaps best known of the hotels were the Kittatinny
and the Water Gap House. The Kittatinny was located at the present
site of the overlook along Rt. 611 just south of the borough. Part
of its foundation still stands beneath the spot from which visitors
look out at the Delaware River and the Rt. 80 bridge. The same view
was enjoyed by guests of the Kittatinny as they stood on the hotel's
large veranda. In 1874, the Brodhead brothers increased the hotel's
capacity to 275. Then, in 1892, the building was razed to make room
for a larger, more elegant New Kittatinny. Able to accommodate 500
guests, the hotel boasted, in addition to spectacular views and cool
breezes, the following:
Electric lights, elevators, steam heat,
running mountain spring water in rooms [and a mountain stream running
under the kitchen -- which can still be seen from the Rt. 80 bridge],
private baths, etc. Noted for its cuisine and service, and the hotel's
farm gives to the table products "par Excellence." ...Bell
phone 92; telegraph office in hotel, orchestra, social diversions.
A 1908 advertisement lists G. Frank Cope as proprietor. Similarly,
one from 1917 lists John Purdy Cope as owner.
The Water Gap House was located above the Kittatinny on Sunset Hill
(so named because when one stands facing east on the hill one can see
the shadows on the mountain across the Delaware slowly rise as the
sun sets in the West). Opened by Luke W. Brodhead on June 20, 1872,
the Water Gap House had first and second story piazzas twelve to fifteen
feet wide and 650 feet long looking out over one of the finest views
in the area. In keeping with the mores of the times, Brodhead built
the hotel with no bar.
In 1908, the Water Gap House was completely rebuilt at a cost of over
$100,000. John Purdy Cope, its new owner, advertised its attractions
in the June 14, 1908 edition of The New York Times :
Capacity, 300. A MOUNTAIN PARADISE; highest altitude, coolest location,
always a breeze, no humidity.... Commanding views for 30 miles in every
direction of the grandest scenery east of the Rockies. Hotel is surrounded
by its magnificent park of Old Shades, Rhododendron, Wild Flowers,
Rare Plants, and Fine Lawns. ...entertaining refined, high-class patronage.
Running mountain spring water and stationery stands in all rooms. Fifty
private tile bats, also public baths. ...Telephones and telegraphs.
Solariums and balconies on all floors. Steam heat, open log fireplaces.
Electric lights. Hydraulic elevator. Most modern sanitary arrangements.
...Hotel supplied from own greenhouse and farm with early vegetables
and poultry. Milk from our own dairy of registered cows. Every outdoor
sport and indoor amusement. Orchestra and frequent social functions.
Private riding academy with high-class saddle horses and instructors;
nine-hole golf links; garage and livery -- all within the grounds.
Coaches meet all trains.
The Glenwood House opened its doors to summer visitors in 1862 after
serving for a while as a boy's academy. In 1897, it was catering to
200 guests, was opened from May to November, and could boast private
balconies on the second floor. A 1909 advertisement claimed a capacity
of 400. The Glenwood also supplied its tables with fresh fruits and
vegetables from its own farm. Of the old resort-hotels, the Glenwood
is the only one still operating as a resort today. (The Central House,
now the Deer Head Inn, still functions as a rooming house and its bar
enjoys a reputation as something of a jazz mecca.)
The Castle Inn opened for business in 1909, and was the last of the
great hotels built in the Gap. When it opened it had 112 guest rooms,
a ball room, recreation rooms, its own power plant, and its own freezing
plant.
The Bellevue was known by two other names over the years. First it
was the Juniper Grove House, and later it was called the Arlington.
As the Bellevue, it could sleep 150 guests and claimed to be the popular
hotel for young people. A big selling point for this and some of the
other hotels was their proximity to the train station.
The hotel located closest to the station was the Delaware House, which
was situated just across the street. Open all year, the Delaware House
could accommodate 50 people and offered, in addition to the normal
activities such as fishing, boating, and bathing, also bowling, pool,
and billiards.
The Riverview, also located near the station, had a capacity of 250.
The Mountain House could hold eighty guests, and the Forest House could
hold 100.
These are just some of the hotels located in the Gap (a list follows).
Many hotels, while not located in Delaware Water Gap, nevertheless
maintained an address in town in hopes of benefiting from the Gap's
popularity. The Karamac, for instance, was located across the river
in New Jersey, and yet advertised its Delaware Water Gap address.
The End of an Era
At five o'clock in the afternoon of Thursday, November 11, 1915, workmen,
helping to close the Water Gap House for the winter, discovered a fire
which had broken out in one of the guest rooms of the hotel. An alarm
was sounded and several fire companies responded; but their efforts
were in vain. Though a light rain was falling at the time, the entire
structure was leveled in only a matter of hours. The loss was estimated
at between $150,000 and $200,000. Four days after the fire, it was
announced that a new hotel, as large as the Water Gap House, would
be built on the same site. The planned hotel was to be fire-proof and,
hopefully, would be open for some of the 1916 season. The hotel was
never built.
Cope experienced another disaster in 1931, when the Kittatinny burned
to the ground. He and his family were awakened at four o'clock on the
morning of October 30, by a passing motorist who had seen flames coming
from the Kittatinny. By six o'clock, the entire structure was engulfed
-- a loss of between $500,000 and $750,000.
Why was neither hotel rebuilt? Over the years the Poconos have continued
to be a major resort region. Delaware Water Gap, however, has steadily
declined as a resort community. Part of the answer for the Gap's decline
as a resort lay with changing transportation trends; there was a clear
symbiotic relationship between the resort and transportation industries
in the town and surrounding area. The large hotels were in an ideal
location to benefit from the easy access that the rail lines and trolleys
provided. The hotels also furnished the varied transportation companies
with a "draw" or need for transportation which the various
companies were eager to fulfill. As the business of travel matured
into the automobile oriented industry of today, however, the demand
for the large hotels located on rail lines diminished. The popularity
of the automobile after World War I, in part, changed the way people
took vacations. No longer tied to the rail system for transportation,
a whole new concept of vacationing developed. In 1909, a story in The
New York Times anticipated this trend when it reported that a weekend
outing with the entire family, stopping for a night's lodging at some
comfortable but not too expensive hotel, was superseding the summer-long
separation of the father from his family.
The automobile was only part of the answer though. Tough economic
times of the 1930's erected a hurdle that, in combination with other
factors mentioned, proved too high for Water Gap's resorts to overcome.
When the resort industry began to expand after World War II, Delaware
Water Gap seemed, for the most part, content to let the resurgence
pass the town by. Many of the small boarding houses were converted
into private residences. Most of the old hotels were either destroyed
by fire, were closed, or continued to operate as best they could under
changed conditions. Water Gap's heyday as a resort had come to an end.
Martin W. Wilson
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