Nesquehoning Creek is an east flowing

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drai ...

of the

Lehigh River The Lehigh River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 tributary of the Delaware River in eastern Pennsylvania. The river flows in a generally southward pat ...

in northeastern

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

.Gertler, Edward. ''Keystone Canoeing'', Seneca Press, 2004. Nesquehoning Creek joins the Lehigh River 2 miles (3.2 km) upstream of the borough of

Jim Thorpe James Francis Thorpe ( Sac and Fox (Sauk): ''Wa-Tho-Huk'', translated as "Bright Path"; May 22 or 28, 1887March 28, 1953) was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe was the first Native ...

in Carbon County.

Name

''Nesquehoning'' is a name derived from a Native American language purported to mean "at the black lick".

Course and history

Nesquehoning Creek rises along the slopes of

Nesquehoning Ridge Nesquehoning may refer to the following places in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania: *Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania, a borough in Carbon County ** Nesquehoning High School, in the above borough *Nesquehoning Creek, a tributary of the Lehigh River *Nesqu ...

and Broad Mountain and flows through two man-made lakes in its descent through a generally steep sided

gully A gully is a landform created by running water, mass movement, or commonly a combination of both eroding sharply into soil or other relatively erodible material, typically on a hillside or in river floodplains or terraces. Gullies resemble lar ...

bottomed V-shaped valley. Along most of its run the stream hugs Broad Mountain which contributes tributary waters and digs it deeper below the navigable floor of the valley. Nesquehoning Creek encompasses a sq-mi drainage area between Broad Mountain to the northwest and the north along the left bank of its generally eastern course and Nesquehoning Mountain to the south. It rises in the peaks flanking join of the two ridgelines in a

saddle The saddle is a supportive structure for a rider of an animal, fastened to an animal's back by a girth. The most common type is equestrian. However, specialized saddles have been created for oxen, camels and other animals. It is not kno ...

at Hometown, PA and terminates in the

about two miles below the town of

Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania Nesquehoning is a borough in Carbon County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The population was 3,336 at the 2020 census. Nesquehoning was established as a result of the nthracite coal mining industry. It w ...

in the shadow of Mount Pisgah from which several minor unnamed tributary streams descend adding their waters. All the mountains in the area are among a series of near parallel ridgelines in the region. Approximately of the

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

or watershed is located in Schuylkill County while is located in Carbon County. Nesquehoning Creek originates in two forested gullies diametrically opposed N-to-S along the east edge of Hometown, the major fork on the slopes of Broad Mountain to the north and the minor to the south on the last minor peak of Nesquehoning Ridge. From their confluence the creek flows south for about then turns to the northeast and flows into and through

Greenwood Lake Greenwood Lake is an interstate lake approximately long, straddling the border of New York and New Jersey. It is located in the Town of Warwick and the Village of Greenwood Lake, New York (in Orange County) and West Milford, New Jersey (in ...

, which is nearly a mile long.by inspection using scale on maps.google.com Approximately downstream from the spillway, it discharges into Lake Hauto, both lakes being man-made. It then continues to the northeast in a relatively narrow valley over its steepest stretch then flattens out and slows making its way through Nesquehoning, which is a right bank town. The stream then travels down a narrow undeveloped ladder or

rapids Rapids are sections of a river where the river bed has a relatively steep gradient, causing an increase in water velocity and turbulence. Rapids are hydrological features between a ''run'' (a smoothly flowing part of a stream) and a ''cascade' ...

section where its elevation drops significantly to its confluence with the Lehigh River opposite and downstream from the Lehigh River Gorge around the bend from Jim Thorpe, PA formed by the roots of Mount Pisgah. Six left bank tributaries enter the stream below Hauto Dam from State Game Lands No. 141 before and west of the summit on Broad Mountain, the uppermost named 'Broad Run', the lower 'Deep Run' being the largest and named, the other four being short and relatively insignificant rills. The heavily forested, relatively steep slopes of Broad and Nesquehoning Mountains and the occasional culm piles characterize the land within the watershed. All travel is channeled in the area by the terrain, so north-south oriented highways are rare and need a saddle pass such as at the streams headwater area for such to cross the valleys. Consequently, Hometown, a small high-elevation outlier of Tamaqua sits in such a pass astride the junction of

Pennsylvania Route 54 Pennsylvania Route 54 (PA 54) is a state highway which runs for in eastern Pennsylvania. It runs from U.S. Route 15 (US 15), which is three miles (5 km) west of Montgomery, Lycoming County, in the west, to US 209 in Nesquehoni ...

and

Pennsylvania Route 309 Pennsylvania Route 309 (PA 309) is a state highway that runs for 134 miles (216 km) through eastern Pennsylvania. The route runs from an interchange between PA 611 and Cheltenham Avenue on the border of Philadelphia and Cheltenham Township n ...

and contains railroad switch junctions as well that connect trackage to the

Wyoming Valley The Wyoming Valley is a historic industrialized region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The region is historically notable for its influence in helping fuel the American Industrial Revolution with its many anthracite coal-mines. As a metropolitan ...

, points south and the Panther Creek Valley via Tamaqua of the Blue Mountain and points west through the Mahanoy Creek valley. The Nesquehoning Creek valley consists of some residential and industrial development, including a power plant, but was primarily a transit corridor. The Hauto Dam constructed opposite the north entrance of the mile-long Hauto Railway Tunnel protected a railroad switching yard for the coal trains servicing the mines in Lansford and Coaldale inside the Panther Creek valley on the opposite side of Nesquehoning Mountain. Nesquehoning Junction is a namedUSGS topo map, misc. web photos. small

railyard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or ...

downstream and within the town of that name along the lower creek. Right bank urban development is concentrated in the Borough of Nesquehoning, left bank development in New Columbus opposite Nesquehoning and at the source region in Hometown. Large areas in the valley have been dramatically disturbed by coal mining related activities. Much of the runoff from strip mines is retained in abandoned pits and therefore lesser amounts of

surface runoff Surface runoff (also known as overland flow) is the flow of water occurring on the ground surface when excess rainwater, stormwater, meltwater, or other sources, can no longer sufficiently rapidly infiltrate in the soil. This can occur when t ...

is discharged into Nesquehoning Creek. The middle two lesser tributary rills noted previously join in one such containment pond in an old Broad Mountain

strip mine Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit (the overburden) are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in whic ...

just above Nesquehoning. The use of the former

Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad built in the Northeastern United States to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Pennsylvania. The railroad was authorized on April 21, 1846 for freight and transportation of passengers, goods, ...

Central Railroad of New Jersey The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines , was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of ...

(CNJ) and route PA-54 marks the importance of the creeks' valley as an important transportation corridor in an area where road beds are highly constricted. The trackage today is used by both the

Reading, Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad The Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad , sometimes shortened to Reading and Northern Railroad, is a regional railroad in eastern Pennsylvania. Its headquarters is in Port Clinton. The RBMN provides freight service on of track. Its mainl ...

and

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31, ...

. The watershed encompasses four municipalities. U.S. Route 209 climbs up inside the V-shaped

of the westernmost of these from the beginning terminus junction with PA-54 within downtown Nesquehoning up over the ridge to the headwaters region of the

Panther Creek Valley In Eastern Pennsylvania, the valley of the Panther Creek tributary of the Little Schuylkill River, a very small and relatively short mountain creek, was historically important due to its stranglehold on energy production, a key region central to ...

across the

drainage divide A drainage divide, water divide, ridgeline, watershed, water parting or height of land is elevated terrain that separates neighboring drainage basins. On rugged land, the divide lies along topographical ridges, and may be in the form of a singl ...

into the valley formed with Pisgah Ridge. Part of the waters are pooled in Lake Hauto above the Hauto Dam in the Hamlet of Hauto, near where the historically important

Hauto Tunnel The Hauto Tunnel, dug in 1871–72, was a single-track railway tunnel crossing under the barrier ridge of Nesquehoning Mountain between Lansford, Pennsylvania, in the Panther Creek Valley and the Central Railroad of New Jersey trackage near the ...

serviced the many

coal breaker A coal breaker is a coal processing plant which breaks coal into various useful sizes. Coal breakers also remove impurities from the coal (typically slate) and deposit them into a culm dump. The coal breaker is a forerunner of the modern coal pre ...

s of Lansford, Coaldale, and historic

Summit Hill Summit Hill is a borough in Carbon County, Pennsylvania. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The population was 3,034 at the 2010 census. Summit Hill has a storied history as the western terminus of the United States' second operational ...

. The

and the

Central Railroad of Pennsylvania The Central Railroad of Pennsylvania was an attempt by the Central Railroad of New Jersey to avoid certain New Jersey taxes on their Pennsylvania lines. The attempt to reduce New Jersey Corporate taxes failed, and CRP operations were merged back ...

(CNJ), both Class I railroads ran trackage up slope to cross north and west over the mountain ridges.

Communities

The stream runs through the following municipalities source-to-mouth: * Rush Township, Schuylkill County officially at 1,129 feet (344 m) * Lehigh Township, Carbon County * Packer Township, Carbon County * Nesquehoning borough, Carbon County officially at 830 ft (253 m) (above stream level, mouth is two miles further east) Image:Nesq_Creek 1.jpg, Nesquehoning Creek at the bridge on Industrial Road,Green Acres Industrial Park Image:Creek flood 1.JPG, Nesquehoning Creek during the flood of June 27, 2006

References

*''Flood Damage and Mitigation Report'', Economic Development Administration and Economic Development Council of Northeastern Pennsylvania, February 1999

External links

Nesquehoning Creek
{{authority control Tributaries of the Lehigh River Rivers of Pennsylvania Rivers of Carbon County, Pennsylvania Rivers of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania

Name

Course and history

Communities

See also

References

External links