Moravian settlement In 1745, the first colonial settlement in Carbon County was established by a
Moravian mission in Gnadenhutten, in present-day
Lehighton. By 1752, increased hostility between colonialists and
Indians put Gnadenhutten at risk for attack; in 1755, the community was attacked by Indians. In the late 1780s, the county's settlement at
Lehigh Gap failed, and colonizers did not return for a decade, in the late 1780s. discovered a black tone
coal outcropping, and conveyed a chunk of it to
Weissport.
Industrialization in Mauch Chunk, now
Jim Thorpe; the company, which was founded in 1822 and dissolved in 1985, spearheaded the
American Industrial Revolution Lehigh Coal Mine Company (LCMC) operations had managed to open up the mouth area of the
Nesquehoning Creek by 1800. This area became known as Lausanne, or Lausanne Landing, after the inn and tavern built there called Landing Tavern. An Indian trail crossed the stream near the confluence with Jean's Run and the camp grounds of their boat builders, climbing northwestwards along a traverse to the next water gap west, eroded into the southern flank of
Broad Mountain in the
Lehigh Valley. It connected across a
barrier ridge whose waters originated in the
saddle-pass where
Hazleton was built. The trail became the
Lehigh and Susquehanna Turnpike in 1804. PA Route 93 follows this route with the exception of where modern road building capabilities allowed improved positioning. This road cut off a trip from
Philadelphia to the
Wyoming Valley and the northern sections of the
Coal Region.
Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company In 1827,
Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, based in present-day
Jim Thorpe, launched the
Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway, the nation's second operating railroad. The
Beaver Meadow Railroad and Coal Company, also located in Carbon County, was the first railway to operate
steam locomotives as traction engines and
prime movers in the United States. The Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway connected mines west of
Beaver Meadows and
Weatherly to the
Lehigh Canal opposite
Lehighton.
County's founding Carbon County was created on March 13, 1843, from parts of
Northampton and
Monroe counties and was named for the extensive deposits of
anthracite coal in the region, where it was first discovered in 1791. Early attempts were made to exploit the deposits by Lehigh Coal Mine Company (1792), whose expeditions broke trail and pioneered river bank sites using mule powered technology to log, saw, and build
arks to carry bags of coal to
Philadelphia with only scant success.
Molly Maguires In the 19th century, Carbon County was the location of trials and executions of the
Molly Maguires, an
Irish secret society that terrorized the region, attacking officials, police officers, and industrial equipment. ==Geography==