2-752-565 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Mauch Chunk and Mount Pisgah', 1872. View of steam locomotives and coal barges in the town of Mauch Chunk, the lower terminus of the Mauch Chunk and Summit railroad, Pennsylvania, USA. This was a gravity railway bringing coal to the head of the Lehigh Canal for shipment to the Delaware River, 43 kilometres downstream. It was the first operational US railway of any substantial length to carry paying passengers, and ran from 1828 until 1932. From "Picturesque America; or, The Land We Live In, A Delineation by Pen and Pencil of the Mountains, Rivers, Lakes...with Illustrations on Steel and Wood by Eminent American Artists" Vol. I, edited by William Cullen Bryant. [D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1872]