Carbon County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Its county seat is Jim Thorpe, founded in 1818 as Mauch Chunk, a company town of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N) as it built a wagon road nine miles to their coal mine at today's Summit Hill, and constructed the Lehigh Canal navigations.
In 1827, that wagon road became the nation's second operating railroad, the Summit Hill & Mauch Chunk Railroad which is regarded as the world's first roller coaster, which became its main function between 1873–1931.
The area around Mauch Chunk was known as the "Switzerland of America", the long wide slack water pool above the Lehigh's upper dam being surrounded by Mauch Chunk Ridge, Bear Mountain, Pisgah Ridge, Mount Pisgah, Nesquehoning Ridge, Broad Mountain and their various prominences and summits.
These amazing photos from Gordon Morales were taken by photographer Ephraim E. Rinker (1886-1950) that show street scenes of Carbon County, Pennsylvania in the 1920s and 1930s.
|
| American Amoco Gas station, Carbon County, Pennsylvania |
 |
| Bear hunt, Carbon County, Pennsylvania |
 |
| Bertsch Street facing east, Lansford, Pennsylvania |
 |
| Burnt building, Carbon County, Pennsylvania |
 |
| Cars (1936 plates on car), Carbon County, Pennsylvania |
 |
| Danger Curve, Carbon County, Pennsylvania |
 |
| East Bertsch street in Lansford, Pennsylvania, looking west toward St. John the Baptist Church |
 |
| House and railroad tracks, Carbon County, Pennsylvania |
 |
| Immaculate Conception Church, 180 West Broadway, Jim Thorpe (Mauch Chunk), Pennsylvania |
 |
| Intersection of East Bertsch and Leisenring Street, Lansford, Pennsylvania, facing north |
 |
| Intersection of East Bertsch and Leisenring Street, Lansford, Pennsylvania, facing south |
 |
| Intersection of East Bertsch and Leisenring Street, Lansford, Pennsylvania, facing south |
 |
| New bridge from Carbon County, Pennsylvania |
 |
| New bridge from Carbon County, Pennsylvania |
 |
| People in front of their house, Carbon County, Pennsylvania |
 |
| POW/MIA Rememberance Highway |
 |
| POW/MIA Rememberance Highway |
 |
| Railroad, Carbon County, Pennsylvania |
 |
| Road, Carbon County, Pennsylvania |
 |
| Sacred Heart School, Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania |
 |
| Street scene, Carbon County, Pennsylvania |
 |
| Tracks, Carbon County, Pennsylvania |
 |
| Trooper, Carbon County, Pennsylvania |
 |
| West Broadway looking west in Jim Thorpe (Mauch Chunk), Pennsylvania |