Image: Chutes Loading the Canal Boats on the Lehigh Canal

Description: Down Among the Coal Mines -- Chutes Loading the Canal-Boats on the Lehigh Canal, a wood engraving published in Harper's Weekly, February 1873. Anthracite Coal was loaded at the foot of Mount Pisgah from above historic Mauch Chunk (present-day Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania). At the top of the image the visible railway 'Wye' is the cross-over between the gravity railroad down track and the cable railroad and inclined plane up railway of the Summit Hill and Mauch Chunk Railroad (aka: 'Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway'; the second operating railway in the country. The railway is considered the first roller coaster in the world and did a tourist trade as early as 1827; and ended it's life serving such tourists between the 1870s and 1931. See also: category: Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway
Title: Chutes Loading the Canal Boats on the Lehigh Canal
Credit: Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Sreejithk2000 using CommonsHelper.
Author: The original uploader was Hugh Manatee at English Wikipedia
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
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