UNIVERSITY^
PENNSYL\5\NIA.
LIBRARIES
"THE ROUTE OF SCENIC CHARM":
A CASE STUDY OF THE DELAWARE, LACKAWANNA, AND
WESTERN RAILROAD IN THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE, 1880-1940
Susan Elizabeth Ellis
A THESIS
The Graduate Program in Historic Preservation
Presented to the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
MASTER OF SCIENCE
1990
Christa Wilmanns- Wells, Lecturer, Historic Preservation
Advisor
Robert Fleming, Lecturer, Mis
Robert Fleming, Lecturer, Historic Preservation
Reader
T^avid G. DeT^ofie, Professor of AfcrTite
Graduate Group Chairman
UNIVERSITY
OF
PENNSYLVANIA
I iRDaotpc.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge my advisor, Dr. Christa
Wilmanns-Wells, without whom this thesis would not have come
to fruition, and to thank her for her guidance and unfailing
support. In my two years here at the University of
Pennsylvania, she has opened up a whole new world to me and
inspired an appreciation of the common American landscape.
I am indebted to my reader, Robert Fleming, for his
patience, invaluable insight, and especially for his
enthusiasm.
I would also like to acknowledge my parents, who
instilled in me a fascination with the past and an interest
in the world around me. I would like thank them, most of
all, for their constant love and support.
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS iv
INTRODUCTION vii
CHAPTER ONE: THE RAILROAD AND INDUSTRIALIZATION
IN THE UNITED STATES
CHAPTER TWO: THE DELAWARE, LACKAWANNA, &
WESTERN RAILROAD 18
CHAPTER THREE: THE RAILROAD AND THE NATURAL
LANDSCAPE 33
CHAPTER FOUR: THE RAILROAD AND THE SUBURBS:
RIGHTS-OF-WAY AND STATION GARDENS 64
CHAPTER FIVE: THE DELAWARE, LACKAWANNA,
& WESTERN RAILROAD AND ITS NEW
JERSEY SUBURBS 88
CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSIONS 106
ILLUSTRATIONS 116
APPENDICES 148
BIBLIOGRAPHY 153
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. A Map of the Morris & Essex Railroad, 1835 (from Thomas
Townsend Taber, The Delaware. Lackawanna & Western
Railroad**The Road of Anthracite**in the Nineteenth Century,
n.p.) .
2. George Inness Delaware Water Gap. 1857 (from American
Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School, p. 233).
3. Lackawanna Railroad Advertisement, c. 1899 (D. L. & W.
Railroad Curatorial Collection, Box 39).
4. Lackawanna Railroad Advertisement, c. 1902 (D. L. & W.
Railroad Curatorial Collection, Box 39) .
5. A Map of the Mountain and Lake Resorts of Pennsylvania
and New Jersey, 1940 (from Mountain and Lake Resorts, D. L.
& W. Railroad Curatorial Collection, Box 39) .
6 "The Spring," Lake Hopatcong, June 20, 1914 (The Free
Public Library of Morristown and Morris Township, Postcard
Box 4) .
7 "Sunnyside," Lake Hopatcong, August 23, 1911 (The Free
Public Library of Morristown and Morris Township, Postcard
Box 4) .
8. Delaware Water Gap. 1874 (from Picturesque America,
n.p.) .
9. "Forty-fourth Annual Convention of the American
Association of General Passenger and Ticket Agents"
invitation, September 26, 1899 (The D. L. & W. Railroad
Curatorial Collection, Box 39) .
10. "Excursion of Newspaper Editors" invitation, June 28-29,
1902 (The D. L. & W. Railroad Curatorial Collection, in
binder, "Interesting Items Prior to 1904," Box 35).
11. "Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Association of
American Railway Accounting Officers" invitation, June 15,
1905 (The D. L. & W. Railroad Curatorial Collection, in
binder, "Interesting Items 1904-1960," Box 35).
12. "Grand Excursion to Rockaway Beach," September 10, 1885
(The D. L. & W. Railroad Curatorial Collection, in binder,
"Interesting Items Prior to 1904," Box 35).
13. Cranberry Lake, N. J. , n.d. (The D. L. & W. Railroad
Photograph Collection, Box 88) .
14. East Stroudsburg Station, n.d. (The D. L. & W. Railroad
Photograph Collection, Box 80) .
15. D. L. & W. Railroad Advertisement, March 24, 1903 (The
D. L. & W. Railroad Curatorial Collection, in binder,
"Interesting Items Prior to 1904," Box 35).
16. D. L. & W. Railroad Advertisement, March 24, 1903 (The
D. L. & W. Railroad Curatorial Collection, in binder,
"Interesting Items Prior to 1904," Box 35).
17 . A Few Pointers about Fishing and Shooting Along
Lackawanna Railroad, c. 1899 (The D. L. & W. Railroad
Curatorial Collection, Box 39) .
18. Mountain and Lake Resorts (front cover), 1942 (The D. L.
& W. Railroad Curatorial Collection, Box 39) .
19. You'll Get More Out of Life. ..in the Lackawanna Suburbs
(front cover), 1935 (The D. L. & W. Railroad Curatorial
Collection, Box 39) .
20. You'll Get More Out of Life... in the Lackawanna Suburbs
(inside front cover), 1935 (The D. L. & W. Railroad
Curatorial Collection, Box 39) .
21. A Map of Suburban Towns Along the Lackawanna Railroad,
1935 (from You'll Get More Out of Life... in the Lackawanna
Suburbs appendix, The D. L. & W. Railroad Curatorial
Collection, Box 39) .
22. Montclair Station, n.d. (The D. L. & W. Railroad
Photograph Collection, Box 76) .
23. Montclair Station, n.d. (The D. L. & W. Railroad
Photographic Collection, Box 76) .
24 Passaic Station, n.d. (The D. L. & W. Railroad Photograph
Collection, Box 78) .
25. Passaic Station (detail), n.d. (The D. L. & W. Railroad
Photograph Collection, Box 78) .
26. Boonton Station, n.d. (The D. L. & W. Railroad
Photograph Collection, Box 78) .
27. "The Oranges and Maplewood," from You'll Get More Out of
Life... in the Lackawanna Suburbs. 1935, pp. 4-5 (The D. L. &
W. Railroad Curatorial Collection, Box 39) .
28. Chatham Station, c. 1926 (from House and Garden, p.
118) .
29. Madison Station, c. 1926 (from House and Garden, p. 88).
30. Morristown Station, c. 1920 (The Free Public Library of
Morristown and Morris Township, Photograph Box 42) .
31. Lackawanna Railroad Station, Morristown, n.d. (The Free
Public Library of Morristown and Morris Township, Postcard
Box 3 ) .
32. Morristown Station, n.d. (The Free Public Library of
Morristown and Morris Township, Postcard Box 3) .
33. Railroad Station, Morristown, n.d. (The Free Public
Library of Morristown and Morris Township, Postcard Box 3) .
34. A Passenger Station at Orange: Street Side Elevation,
May 15, 1916 (from New Jersey Transit) .
35. A Passenger Station at Orange: Plot Plan, September 22,
1916 - June 7, 1917 (from New Jersey Transit) .
36. Madison Station, 1990.
37. Morristown Station, 1990.
INTRODUCTION
"It's time to go with Phoebe Snow,
Where banks of rhododendron blow. .
This thesis will explore the relationship between the
railroad and the American landscape during the nineteenth
century. It investigates the way in which the railroad
companies, specifically, the Delaware, Lackawanna, and
Western, manipulated the landscape both indirectly and
directly. The study of dozens of publications issued by the
D. L. & W. for more than half a century provided an
important archival resource. This material, I discovered,
shed light on the ways in which the railroad first used the
natural, untouched landscape to its own economic advantage
and then later altered certain landscapes along rights-of-
way and around stations in order to promote itself and to
gain economic benefits.
The first two chapters will provide the historic
context for the unique relationship between the railroad and
the American countryside. Chapter One briefly describes the
industrialization and suburbanization of the United States
as it was effected by the railroad, and also traces
America's perceptions of the landscape over time. The
second chapter offers a concise history of the D. L. & W.
Railroad and its early advertising campaigns. Chapter Three
considers the evolution of tourism and excursions in this
country and the ways in which the D. L. & W. used the
untouched landscape along their various routes to appeal to
the public. In the next two chapters, the development of
railroad beautif ication in the United States is studied,
from Donald G. Mitchell and early improvement societies to
the D. L. & W. and its New Jersey suburbs. Chapter Six
explains the demise of the railroad, the end of the D. L. &
W. • s elaborate advertising campaigns based on the landscape
around them, and the subseguent disappearance of the
railroad station garden. In addition, practical
applications for station garden restoration are discussed.
Suggestions for today include those aimed at existing sites
and potential new ones.
The Delaware, Lackawanna, & Western Railroad Collection
at the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission Railroad
Museum in Strasburg provided the majority of the primary
source material for this thesis. The nearly one hundred
curatorial, research, and photography boxes devoted to the
D. L. & W. contain a wealth of information, including
original booklets, pamphlets, brochures, advertising cards,
ticket stubs, timetables, maps, postcards, and articles, but
unfortunately they are entirely uncatalogued. In addition
to the PHMC Railroad Museum, the Free Public Library of
Morristown and Morris Township, in New Jersey, the Free
Library of Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Horticultural
Society proved to be extremely helpful.
The railroad played a very crucial role in the
development of the United States throughout the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. Its importance in shaping
the country and its imprint upon the landscape are still
recognized today. For these reasons, the railroad and its
stations, the gateways to America's towns, possess
invaluable historical significance. And today, in the face
of the disappearance of this once-great institution, the
preservation of its legacy is of critical importance.
AMERICA IN THE 19TH CENTURY
The nineteenth century in America was characterized by
rapid population growth and the dramatic economic expansion
of the Industrial Revolution. A shift in the population
from the historic centers to the outskirts of large cities
was brought on by a new trend evidenced in the separation
between place of work and place of residence; and it was
manifested in the increase of the average businessman's
journey to his place of employment. As a result of the
Industrial Revolution and one of its primary instruments,
the steam railroad, invented in 1814 by Englishman George
Stephenson, America was becoming a nation of movement.
At first, it was the poorer classes who moved out of
the urban centers and into the periphery, where land was
more affordable and the city still accessible.
Simultaneously, the emerging nouveau riche class, the
industrial giants of the nineteenth century like Cornelius
Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, and John D.
Rockefeller, began to move out of the increasingly congested
cities and into the country immediately outside. Following
the British tradition of the ^gentleman's country estate',
this rising upper class purchased vast amounts of real
estate within commuting distance of the big cities; these
wealthier individuals could afford to be farther away from
the city, while the lower classes were constrained by
economic necessity to live within closer proximity of the
burgeoning metropolis.6 The railroad during this period was
both a blessing and a curse, supporting the trend towards
suburbanization and contributing to the economic boom, but
also adding to the social problems of the American city.
The railroad made the urban centers accessible to those who
wished to live in the suburbs, but, because of the
relatively high cost of fares, the railroad regulated where
the people could reside based on their economic status.
Initially, the railroads were established primarily for
industrial reasons, to facilitate the transportation of
coal, iron, and ice, and later to link the large urban
centers of a country that was still expanding into
unexplored frontier lands. Modern observers have referred
to the railroad of the nineteenth century as the "prime
instrument of the large-scale industrialization which re-
created American nature into * natural resources' for
commodity production."5 Like any vast institution, the
railroad companies sought profits wherever they could find
them.6 By building small stations in the rural villages
through which their lines passed, the railroad companies
encouraged villagers to commute to the large cities at the
end of the lines, as well as to take day trips to other
small towns nearby. This practise became so profitable, as
a result of the hoards of people fleeing the cities for the
peace of the country, that the 187 0s and 1880s witnessed the
mass establishment of commuter rail lines throughout the
country, particularly along the eastern seaboard.
The suburban and rural villages along the railroad
lines were primarily small, self-contained communities
scattered throughout the countryside "like beads on a
string", with the majority of their population and small
businesses concentrated around the railroad station.8 The
railroad successfully drew the upper classes to the outlying
villages, promoting them as ideal weekend retreats and
vacation spots, while encouraging middle class businessmen
to settle in the suburbs, a more pleasant and more
affordable environment than the city. Andrew Jackson
Downing pointed out, in the mid-nineteenth century, that
"[h]undreds and thousands, formerly obliged to live in the
crowded streets of cities, now f[ound] themselves able to
enjoy a country cottage, several miles distant" from the
metropolis.9 The emergence of the suburban country club in
the 1890s secured the patronage of the railroad by the elite
weekenders. The opportunity to participate in outdoor
sports like golf, cricket, and polo with one's social and
economic peers was something unique to these exclusive
suburban clubs. By the 1900s, the American suburb could be
characterized as a population comprised predominantly of
upper and middle class businessmen, and a significant
portion of the lower classes who worked for them.
Although the introduction of the railroad was perhaps
the single most significant factor in the suburbanization of
America, there were numerous other elements that gave
impetus to this shift in population density and also
contributed to the railroad's success. The urban centers of
this country during the nineteenth century were becoming
increasingly overcrowded, dirty, and unsafe; sgualor,
poverty, inadeguate means of sewage and garbage disposal,
rising crime rates, and periodic labor violence all
contributed to the unhealthy image of the American
metropolis. In addition, some of these abominable
conditions encouraged occasional outbreaks of cholera, small
pox, and yellow fever.10 Frederick Law Olmsted blamed these
problems on the high density population of the cities and
the presence of alcohol, prostitution, and an unegual
distribution of wealth.11 People began to search for any
escape from these malevolent conditions, and the dream of
unspoiled nature encountered in the country, where fresh
air, sunshine, and greenery produced a healthier atmosphere,
seemed to provide the perfect solution.
As referred to above, it was just such intolerable
conditions in American cities that led men like Olmsted and
his partner, Calvert Vaux, to develop a unique program for
bringing the country to the city, in the form of a vast
public green space. Olmsted led the way for the urban park
movement with his belief that every citizen should have
access to a green space, an idea that had been inspired by
Downing.13 Olmsted believed that "the great advantage which
a town finds in a park, lies in the addition to the health,
strength and morality which comes from it."14 It was widely
hoped that the creation of places like Central Park would
contribute to the salvation of the overgrown city by
"serv[ing] as the lungs of [the] metropolis."15
Unfortunately, as successful as these urban parks were,
they were not the ultimate solution. They provided only a
momentary respite from the sgualid conditions in which many
urban residents spent most of their lives. The industrial
age had gradually brought with it time- and labor-saving
devices which, although they made life easier, came at a
substantial cost. Some of these x costs' to parts of the
urban population were manifested in the subsequently lower
pay and poor working conditions in the factories, as well as
in the dirt, disease, and increasingly hectic pace of city
life. Inventions like the railroad provided greater and
easier access to distant areas but also brought an
increasing awareness of time. As Thoreau pointed out in his
classic book, Walden, the trains came and went "with such
regularity and precision, and their whistle [could] be heard
so far, that the farmers set their clocks by them, and thus
one well-conducted institution regulate[d] a whole
country."16 The stress of timetables and ^punching' time
was an inescapable aspect of industrialization. When
Olmsted realized that the urban park was not the cure for
all the stresses and evils of the metropolis, he turned his
attention to the countryside immediately beyond the city
limits. The country was both prevention and cure: some
city dwellers fled to the country, where they found "repose
for body and soul in its leafy groves and pleasant
pastures..." for the entire summer, while others made short
convalescent visits.
The mixture of town and country that comprised the
American suburb was described by Olmsted in 1868 as "the
most attractive, the most refined, and the most soundly
wholesome form of domestic life."18 And in these suburbs,
linked to the nearby metropolis by the railroad, Olmsted and
others saw the point at which the nineteenth century machine
and nature met.19 Because of the advent of
industrialization, wrote Edward W. Bok in 1895,
" [everything in our large American cities [was] hustle and
bustle The great American centres [were] for business,
not for living purposes," and it was only in the outlying
villages where American life truly existed. Parris T.
Farwell viewed these small towns where beautiful, healthful,
and wholesome environments had been created as a solution to
the problems of the period.21 By transferring their
efforts from the city to the suburban towns and rural
villages, nineteenth-century planners sought to reconcile
the increasingly divergent spheres of technology and nature.
At the same time that urban and rural leaders were
attempting to counteract the machine age's negative effects,
the American people were beginning to look at nature in a
different way. Due primarily to the writings of men like
William Cullen Bryant, Thomas Cole, and James Fenimore
Cooper, and with a significant debt to the artists of the
Hudson River School, nature began to be idealized for its
beauty and grandeur.22 Nature was no longer an untamed
wilderness but rather a breathtaking, majestic result of
God's handiwork; where once man had feared nature, he now
stood in awe of it. With the opening up of the West,
America's curiosity about the rest of the country was
piqued. Publications such as Bryant's Picturesque America
(1874) , which provided "full descriptions and elaborate
pictorial delineations of the scenery characteristic of all
the different parts of our country," allowed the public to
experience some of the wildest and most beautiful scenery in
the world, without having to leave their homes.23 By
portraying the natural wonders of the land such as
waterfalls, virgin forests, shimmering lakes, and mountains,
America ' s creative minds provided their audience with a new
perception of and appreciation for the land around them.
All over the nation, people slowly began to became conscious
of and to perceive of the need for natural beauty as a
remedy for society's ills, and the importance of the
preservation of such beauty for the future. This change in
attitude is corroborated by the establishment, in 1864 and
in 1872 respectively, of the country's first state and first
national parks, Yosemite and Yellowstone, which were soon
joined by others such as Niagara Falls. The attitudes of
people and corporations towards the preservation and
beautif ication of those landscapes, traversed and touched by
the Iron Horse, the simultaneous blessing and curse of
nineteenth-century progress, will be discussed further in
subseguent chapters.
The History of Railroad Beautif ication
The practise of beautifying the lands that were touched
by the ever-expanding lines of the railroad had its origins
in Europe, and initially focused on the area immediately
surrounding the village station.24 During the 1800s,
Theopile Gautier wrote that the stations were "places of
modern industry where the religion of the [nineteenth]
century [was] displayed, that of the railways. These
cathedrals of the new humanity [were] the meeting points of
nations, the centres where all converge[d], the nucleus of
huge stars whose iron rays stretch [ed] out to the ends of
the earth."25 More recently, the importance of the station
to the village it served was summarized by David St. John
Thomas, a celebrant of English country stations:
The station was the place where the railway
greeted its local customers and took their money,
the doorway through which important people. . .would
pass,... the storeplace for every kind of
commodity, .. .in transit from town to country and
vice versa. It was also the place where news came
from the outside world either by telegraph. . .or by
newspaper or word of mouth. It was the place
where every piece of invention of the Victorian
age could first be seen.... Just how important the
station was to the life of the community can be
gauged from the numerous stretches of approach
road and land that were improved at the
ratepayers' expense.26
In the early days of the railroad, the station master
performed a variety of duties, from selling tickets to
switching the lines, and usually inhabited living guarters
provided by the company and situated directly on the station
grounds. The station masters' wives, like their non-
railroad peers, were accustomed to raising flowers and
vegetables in small kitchen gardens outside their back
doors, and so it was only logical that they maintain this
practise around their new living guarters.27 American
travellers throughout Europe, and particularly in France,
were quick to notice and appreciate this tendency, which had
apparently not made its way to the United States as yet.
Donald G. Mitchell, a prolific writer and Connecticut
landscape architect of the latter half of the nineteenth
century, was one American thoroughly impressed by the
station grounds of France, Germany, and Switzerland. Upon
his return to this country, Mitchell's writings began to
praise this European practise and to encourage its adoption
by American station masters, villagers, and railroad
companies. In his 1867 book Rural Studies (republished in
1884 as Out-of-Town Places) , Mitchell heralds the American
railroad station and its grounds as an area with a great
deal of potential for improvement. The railway and its
various station were "prominent feature[s] in many of our
suburban landscapes" and were "being sadly overlooked."
Mitchell urged the railroad companies and the
inhabitants of the villages with stations to join together
in an effort to transform the station grounds from the "most
unkempt and noisome wilderness" into a noteworthy example of
their civic pride.29 The end result of these endeavors
would serve as an advertisement for both the railroad
company and the town it represented. In addition to
adapting his observations for the improvement of station
grounds in America, Mitchell took this European precedent a
step further. He extended the necessity for beautifying the
grounds immediately around the station to the land along the
railroads' rights-of-way, an idea that appears to be without
precedent.30 Although this proved to be a less practical
attempt at improvement than the simpler station garden, it
was nevertheless one of Donald G. Mitchell's more intriguing
and innovative concepts.
A little over a decade after the publication of
Mitchell's book a frenchman, Edouard Andre, produced a
European equivalent to Rural Studies, entitled L'art des
iardins: traite general de la composition des pares et
iardins. Like Mitchell, Andre also encouraged his readers to
pay particular attention to the gardens around railroad
stations and devoted a number of pages in various chapters
to their discussion. In an early chapter of his treatise,
Andre argued that the railroad station garden deserves a
considerable amount of attention; he criticized the
exaggerated ornamentation of English examples while praising
those he encountered in Germany.32 Sections in later
chapters included recommendations for appropriate plantings
as well as descriptions and plans for a small station
garden.
By this time, during the 1880s, American railroad
companies were beginning to heed Donald G. Mitchell's advice
and take an active role in beautifying the landscape along
their lines. According to Parris T. Farwell in his 1913
book titled Village Improvement, the trend towards station
ground improvement was begun by a Massachusetts baggage
master named E. A. Richardson. His single-handed efforts at
his own station were noticed by the Boston & Albany Railroad
officials who subseguently appointed him * Superintendent of
Station Gardens' and encouraged this practise at all of
their stations.33
The Boston & Albany Railroad was one of the first
companies to go beyond the traditional utilitarian structure
and erect an architect-designed station building in an
attractive, planned setting. The B & A paired the well-
known architect H. H. Richardson with Frederick Law Olmsted
in an attempt to make their stations more appealing to
11
residents, commuters, and travellers. 5A Following the lead
of the B & A and Olmsted, other railroad companies, like
the Boston & Maine, Lackawanna, and Michigan Central, and
community improvement societies began to take an interest in
improving the grounds around their stations.35 The
Lackawanna Railroad hired an unknown landscape architect,
sometime prior to 1881, to design the station grounds at
Demorest, New Jersey, while in 1890 the citizens of Beverly,
Massachusetts joined together and hired Charles Eliot to
make their Boston & Maine Railroad station more
attractive.36 These private efforts did not go unnoticed,
as the B & M subsequently established an annual prize for
the best station gardens.37
Railroad beautif ication on this continent was not
limited to the United States, as evidenced by the large-
scale implementation of these practises on the part of the
Canadian Pacific Railway. A self -proclaimed "pioneer in
realizing the economic value of horticultural beauty
throughout its system," this North American company involved
its station agents, section foremen, and other employees in
cultivating gardens at many of their stations.38
Meanwhile, back across the ocean, British railroad
companies were promoting the country station as a thing of
beauty, and even established a number of annual prizes
awarded to those stations with the best-kept gardens. The
North-Eastern Railway was just one such British company that
12
encouraged a friendly rivalry among its village stations.
Every August, company directors and staff heads gathered
together to judge the various station gardens, choosing a
total of sixty winners from a variety of categories. The
monetary awards were divided into first, second, and third
class prizes and then distributed among each station's
staff, with the station master receiving the largest
portion.39
Throughout the nineteenth century, Americans were
fascinated and greatly influenced by English culture and
adopted many of their ideas and conventions with regard to
architecture and landscaping. Men like A.J. Davis and A.J.
Downing introduced the American public to the British
country villa and encouraged the use of popular Victorian
plant varieties, such as picturesque weeping trees and deep-
colored flowers.
Perhaps one of the most significant indications that
railroad beautif ication was of interest to American society
throughout this period, was its introduction into the
landscape architecture curriculum at the hands of Frank A.
Waugh. Waugh, an author and professor at Massachusetts
Agricultural College, brought the topic of railroad station
improvement into his studio class in 1905. As a result of
the subsequent publication of an article describing this
project, and the release of a report by the Railroad
Improvement Committee of the American Civic Association, the
13
issue of railroad beautif ication was brought to the
forefront of landscape architecture and to the attention of
the general public.40
Eventually, the responsibility for improving station
grounds shifted away from the railroad companies and was
taken up by neighborhood committees and village improvement
societies, comprised of local citizens/1 (see Chapter Four)
Meanwhile, the railroad companies turned their attention and
resources to beautifying the endless rights-of-way that
snaked across the countryside. Where once the unspoiled,
untouched beauty of nature had been sufficient to entice
travellers on the rail lines, now companies felt that they
had to attract and please their passengers with ornamental
plantings, picturesgue groupings of trees and shrubs, and
meticulously sodded banks of grass. Among other incentives
offered by the railroad companies, the promise of
magnificent, unspoiled panoramas or vignettes of nature and
the captivating station gardens of the suburbs successfully
enticed people away from the cities and into the ^moving'
experience of the countryside nearby. Unfortunately, as it
turned out, the railroad companies would not be given much
time to carry out their plans, as the birth of the
automobile would soon bring an end to the age of the
railroad, and with this new mode of transportation came a
new and vastly different perspective of the American
landscape.
14
NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE
1. Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabqrass Frontier; The
Suburbanization of the United States (New York: W. W. Norton
& Company, Inc., 1972), pp. 20, 35.
2. Robert Fishman, Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall
of Suburbia (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1987), p. 152.
3. K. Jackson, p. 88.
4. K. Jackson, p. 88.
5. Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America:
Culture & Society in the Gilded Age (New York: Hill and
Wang, 1982) , p. 19.
6. Robert H. Wiebe, Search for Order: 1877-1920 ed.
David Donald, (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967), p. 18.
7. Wiebe, p. 47.
8. K. Jackson, p. 99; Fishman, p. 136.
9. Andrew Jackson Downing, Rural Essays (New York:
George P. Putnam and Company, 1853) , p. 11.
10. "The World of New York," Putnam ' s Monthly 7 (June
1856) , p. 661.
11. Frederick Law Olmsted, Landscape into Cityscape:
Frederick Law Olmsted's Plans for a Greater New York City
ed. Albert Fein. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1968), pp. 32, 34.
12. Putnam's Monthly, p. 661.
13. Olmsted, p. 52; Downing Rural Essays, p. 144.
14. Olmsted, p. 100.
15. Putnam's Monthly, p. 662.
16. Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1910; reprint, New
York: E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc., 1962), p. 104.
17. Downing, Rural Essays, p. 147.
18. Fishman, p. 127.
15
19. Peter J. Schmitt, Back to Nature; The Arcadian Myth
in Urban America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969),
p. 21.
20. Edward W. Bok, "Where American Life Really Exists,"
Ladies Home Journal (October 1895), p. 14.
21. Parris Thaxter Farwell, Village Improvement (New
York: Sturgis & Walton Company, 1913), p. 5.
22. Thomas Cole, "Essay on American Scenery," in
Marshall Tymn, ed. , The Collected Essays and Prose Sketches
22. (St. Paul, MN: The John Colet Press, 1980), pp. 4-5.
23. William Cullen Bryant, Picturesque America: Or the
Land We Live in. A Delineation by Pen and Pencil of the
Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, Forests, Water Falls. Shores.
Canyons, Valleys, Cities and other Picturesque Features of
our Country, with Illustrations on Steel and Wood by Eminent
American Artists Vol. I (1874; reprint, New York: American
Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 1974), preface.
24. Donald Grant Mitchell, Out of Town Places: With
Hints for their Improvement (1867; reprint, New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884), p. 149.
25. All Stations - A Journey through 150 Years of
Railway History (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1981), p. 6.
26. Jeffrey Richards and John M. MacKenzie, The Railway
Station: A Social History (Oxford University Press, 1969) ,
p. 180.
27. John R. Stilgoe, "The Railroad Beautiful: Landscape
Architecture and the Railroad Gardening Movement, 1867-
1930," Landscape Journal 1, #2(Fall 1982), p. 57.
28. Mitchell, pp. 159, 147.
29. Mitchell, p. 148.
30. "Landscape Treatment of Railways" in Rural Studies,
pp. 153-160.
31. John R. Stilgoe, Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads
and the American Scene (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1983), p. 229.
32. Edouard Andre, L'art des iardins: traite general de
la composition des pares et iardins (Paris: G. Masson,
1879) , p. 195.
16
33. Farwell, p. 181; Richards, p. 182.
34. J. H. Phillips, "The Evolution of the Suburban
Station," Architectural Record 36(August 1914), p. 124.
35. Richards, p. 182.
36. Samuel Parson, "Railway, Church-Yard, and Cemetery
Lawn-Planting," Scribner's Monthly 22(July 1881), p. 416.
37. Richards, p. 182.
38. E. L. Chicanot, "Beautifying a Railroad System,"
Landscape Architecture 15(1911), pp. 186-187.
39. Richards, p. 181.
40. Stilgoe, "The Railroad Beautiful," p. 61.
41. Farwell, p. 182.
17
THE DELAWARE, LACKAWANNA & WESTERN RAILROAD
Origins of the D. L. & W.
The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad was the
parent company of an entire family of railroad companies
serving Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey and
officially came into existence in 1853. What eventually
became the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad began in
1851 as a small company in Pennsylvania by the name of
Liggett' s Gap Railroad. When this company merged in the
same year with the Delaware & Cobb's Railroad, and also
acquired the Cayuga & Susquehanna Railroad, their joint name
was changed to the Lackawanna & Western Railroad, which was
subsequently changed again, in 1853, to the Delaware,
Lackawanna & Western Railroad.1 The D. L. & W. Railroad,
with its headquarters located in Scranton, was created
primarily for the purpose of hauling coal from the
anthracite mines of the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valleys in
sylvania.2
The company was extremely interested in expanding its
market and accomplished this by broadening the extent of its
service through the acquisition of nearby railroad
companies. The Warren Railroad was leased by the D.L.& W.
Railroad in 1857, as was the Morris & Essex Railroad in
1868, adding new sources of revenue with the transport of
iron ore and ice from the numerous mines and lakes of New
18
Jersey to other areas served by the D.L.& W. The Syracuse,
Binghamton & New York Railroad and the Oswego & Syracuse
Railroad were added to the D.L.& W. family in 1869 and a
year later the Greene Railroad and the Chenango &
Susquehanna Valley Railroad were also added. In 1873 the
Lackawanna & Bloomsburg Railroad was acquired, and 1882 saw
the addition of the New York, Lackawanna & Western Railroad
to the vast empire of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western
Railroad, a domain that encompassed the mining regions of
northeastern Pennsylvania, the Pocono Mountains and Delaware
Water Gap area, northern New Jersey, New York City, Buffalo,
and the Finger Lakes region of New York.3
The Morris & Essex Railroad, which eventually became
the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad's main branch
serving the lake region and New York City suburbs of New
Jersey, was established in 1835. The Morris Canal brought
anthracite coal to the iron forges and furnaces of Morris
County via the Delaware River from 1824 until the 1870s.
However, the canal missed Morristown, the county seat, by
nine miles, a fact that upset its residents, whose funds,
along with those of the residents of nearby Chatham and
Bottle Hill (known today as Madison) , formed a majority of
those used to build the canal. A decade after the Morris
Canal opened, disgruntled residents conceived the idea of
connecting Morristown to the canal by way of a railroad.
The 'Morris & Essex Railroad Company' was incorporated
19
on January 29, 1868 by Isaac Baldwin, William Britten, John
I. Bryans, Israel D. Condict, James Cook, Jeptha B. Munn,
and William N. Wood, all prominent Morristown residents and
businessmen. Dr. Lewis Condict, a member of the New Jersey
State Legislature and later a Congressman, was named as
President of the Board. The construction of this railroad
proved to be an expensive project with the line costing
about $16,000 per mile, for a total cost of $288,000,
another $12,000 for the erection of depots, watering places,
and the like, not to mention the exorbitant prices demanded
by property owners for valuable right-of-way lands. To
compensate for these high costs, the company sought ' strip
gifts' as a means of acguiring necessary land, and also
solicited a contract to carry United States mail. On
November 19, 1836, the Morris & Essex Railroad was
officially opened (see Illustration 1); when the D.L.& W.
began leasing it in December of 1868, it became known a the
Morris & Essex Division of the Delaware, Lackawanna &
Western Railroad.5
p. L. & W. Advertising Campaigns
Throughout the decades of its existence, the Delaware,
Lackawanna, & Western Railroad (commonly known as the
Lackawanna Railroad) had a long and creative history of
publicity and advertising. The rapidly expanding railroad
companies of the mid-l800s were eager to advertise by
20
illustrating the scenic beauty which their routes made
accessible to the public. In 1855, just two years after
they came into existence, the D. L. & W. commissioned George
Inness to paint a view of the Lackawanna Valley that
included their trains and the newly constructed roundhouse.6
This now well-known painting, "The Lackawanna Valley" was
originally called "The First Roundhouse of the D. L. & W.
Railroad at Scranton." Inness, a native of New York,
journeyed to Scranton by stage to make his preliminary
sketch for the work. This initial attempt was rejected by
the railroad committee because it failed to show all four of
the trains that the president had requested. Inness was
also required to emphasize the initials "D. L. & W." on the
locomotive.7
It has recently been speculated that the D. L. & W.
commissioned a suite of landscape paintings from Inness. In
addition to the "Lackawanna Valley," this suite may have
included two paintings which were both titled "Delaware
Water Gap," and dated from 1857 and 1859.8(see Illustration
2) The 1859 version of the Delaware Water Gap was later
reproduced as both an etching and a color lithograph.
Because, as current art historians have noted, these three
paintings were completed within four years of each other,
are exactly the same size, and all feature views of the D.
L. & W. Railroad, it is possible that these works were
indeed commissioned by the company in order to advertise
21
Another attempt to bring the Lackawanna countryside to
the public via art can still be seen today in the lobby of
the D. L. & W.'s former main station in Scranton. The lobby
was decorated with a series of mosaics which depicted some
of the scenery that could be witnessed along the railroad's
routes; these scenes continue to decorate the lobby of the
recently renovated building, now a major hotel.
The D. L. & W.'s first direct attempts at advertising
were aimed at the growing number of people who were seeking
sojourns in the country as a respite from the rigors of day-
to-day life in the city. To encourage families to take
excursions and vacations in areas served by the D.L. & W.
Railroad, General Passenger Agent Thomas W. Lee published
two booklets, "Summering on the Lackawanna" in 1897, and
"Ghost of the Glacier and Other Tales" written by Will
Bogert Hunter in 1900. Both of these publications, which
will be examined further in the following chapter, provided
descriptions of the excursions available, as well as of the
scenic attractions and small towns along the lines.10 The
D. L. & W also increased its visibility by participating in
the Pan-American Exposition of 1901. The exposition was
held in Buffalo, N.Y., one of the cities served by the D.L.
& W. , and lasted from May until November. By providing
special excursion trips to the exposition, maintaining an
exhibit on the site, and publishing a "Catalogue of Pictures
22
and Exhibits of the Lackawanna Railroad at the Pan-American
Exposition," the D.L. & W. successfully promoted itself on a
very grand scale.1
The next attempt at advertising undertaken by the D. L.
& w. was aimed at long-haul passengers, people on vacation,
and businessmen who travelled great distances by train.
This memorable campaign centered around the mythical figure
of Phoebe Snow, conceived by Mr. Lee and D.L.& W. president
William Haynes Truesdale, and served the company for nearly
two decades from 1900 until World War I.12 Following the
successful reign of Phoebe Snow, the company turned its
advertising attention towards the suburban communities
developing along the lines leading out of New York City and
into the New Jersey countryside. During the 193 0s, the D.
L. & W. Railroad produced a series of booklets promoting the
virtues of living in the railroad's suburbs. (The railroad
company ' s attempts to capture the commuter market through
station beautif ication will be examined in Chapter Five.)
The D. L. & W. hoped that their efforts would be appreciated
by individuals who in turn would recommend the railroad to
their friends. Underlying each of these different campaigns
was the D. L. & W.'s belief that the "best advertisement
[was] a ^walking advertisement.'"13
Around the turn of the century, D. L. & W. President
Truesdale, his General Passenger Agent, Mr. Lee, and an
outside advertising agent named Wendle P. Colton, decided to
23
choose a positive aspect of the D. L. & W. Railroad and
transform it into a successful campaign theme. A recent
letter from Mark Twain in which the author wrote to the
railroad management that he had "left New York on Lackawanna
Railroad this A.M. in white duck suit, and it's white yet"
inspired the three men to choose cleanliness as their
primary selling point. K(See Illustration 3) The D. L. & W.
was justifiably proud of its spotless railroad, which
boasted immaculate wooden passenger cars that ran on some of
the best-kept tracks in the country. The most obvious
example of the railroad's commitment to cleaner
transportation was its exclusive use of hard, anthracite
coal to power their steam locomotives. While most of their
competitors were using softer bituminous coal, which
produced a dirty, sooty smoke, the D. L. & W.'s anthracite-
fueled engines emitted little smoke and very few cinders.
The use of this harder coal provided D. L. & W. passengers
with a cleaner journey and reduced the amount of volatile
by-products, which inhibited growth of plants along the
railroad. 15
The earliest advertisement cards for the xRoad of
Anthracite, ' consisted of an image of a x Maiden all in
Lawn, 'and a poem describing how her white dress and gloves
remained unblemished throughout the entire journey. The
first card, circa 1901, depicted an attractive young woman
in a spotless white dress standing beside one of the D. L. &
24
W.'s railroad cars; the accompanying jingle informed the
public that
This is the Maiden all in Lawn
Who boarded the train one early morn
That runs on the Road of Anthracite
And when she left the train that night
She found to her surprised delight
Hard Coal had kept her dress still bright.
In 1902, on the heels of these catchy car cards,
Colton, Truesdale, and Lee produced a booklet called, "A
Romance of the Rail."17 This collection of seven similarly
illustrated poems described the marriage of the ^Maiden all
in Lawn' and continued to extol the cleanliness of the D. L.
& W. With this publication, the railroad also began to
emphasize the natural beauty that could be seen along the
railroad's various routes. The opening poem was accompanied
by a scenic view of the Delaware River and stated that
These are the views disclosed to sight
Of Water Gap and mountain height
That lie on the Road of Anthracite.
Some time between 1902 and 1903, the railroad and the
advertising agency decided to give their ^Maiden all in
Lawn' a name, and thus the unforgettable Phoebe Snow was
born. (see Illustration 4) W.P. Colton chose Mrs. Marian E.
Murray, a young model who had recently come to New York
City, to portray Phoebe Snow in their advertisements and
also to represent the railroad at publicity events. Mrs.
Murray posed as Phoebe Snow for the five most successful
25
years of the campaign, up until 1907. For the following ten
years a variety of women played the part of Phoebe Snow,
until she was retired from the advertising campaign during
World War I.19
The Phoebe Snow advertisements took the form of either
a drawing or photograph with a descriptive poetic jingle to
accompany the image and were seen in newspapers and
magazines and as posters. Once an idea was conceived, the
desired outdoor scene would be arranged on location, usually
in the Poconos or Delaware Water Gap area. With a model
posing as Miss Snow, a series of black and white photographs
were taken. The catchy jingles were composed later, based
on the subjects which they were to illustrate.20 While the
newspaper and magazine advertisements utilized these
photographs, the posters and advertising cards consisted of
colorful drawings based on their photographic
counterparts.
As mentioned above, the D. L. & W. frequently
emphasized the cleanliness of its railroad together with the
exquisite natural beauty that could be seen along their
lines. By successfully marketing this combination of
enviable characteristics, the D. L. & W. attempted to
establish its railroad as the most desirable choice for the
American public. In "The Story of Phoebe Snow," a
collection of stories and jingles that covered the period
from the turn-of-century up until World War I, the D. L. &
26
W.'s awareness of the landscape was undeniably evident. (See
Appendix A) More than ten of the poems included in this
booklet were devoted to Phoebe Snow's enjoyment of the
alluring scenery of the Delaware Water Gap, Niagara Falls,
and the Pocono Mountains:
An hour's ride and she's beside
Niagara Falls of fame worldwide -
Her garb of white remains just right
She thanks the Road of Anthracite. 2
Many of these particular jingles were aimed directly at
potential customers in search of a vacation in the country:
It's time to go with Phoebe Snow
Where banks of rhododendron blow
In pink and white on every height
Along the Road of Anthracite.
In addition to the earlier advertisements that promised
cleanliness and exquisite scenery, the D. L. & W. also
promoted some of its other noteworthy attributes, namely the
safety and efficiency of the railroad. Nineteenth-century
companies were frequently criticized for "spend[ing] more on
luxury than on safety or convenience."23 One of the D. L. &
W.'s drawings shows a white-clad Phoebe Snow holding onto
her hat as she leans out of the engine car,
Devoid of fear
With roadbed clear
Miss Phoebe with
The Engineer
Notes green and white
Of signal light
"Tis the safe Road
of Anthracite.24
27
Another advertisement states that
Miss Snow may scan
Through journey's span
Each keen and faithful
Tower-man,
Whose levers bright
Are swung aright
Upon the Road
Of Anthracite,
as she stands on the rear platform of a caboose. The D. L.
& W. also claimed that its xRoad of Anthracite' offered the
shortest route from Manhattan to Buffalo, and Phoebe Snow
declared that its stations were "up to date. . . new and
bright" unlike those of other railroad companies.
The cleanliness of the D. L. & W. , of course, continued
to be the railroad's most successful campaign and was
usually most evident in the ever-white dress worn by Phoebe
Snow in each advertisement, as well as in public, at events
sponsored by the railroad. Perhaps one of the last jingles
written about this subject, before the retirement of Miss
Snow during World War I, is the one that appeared on the
front cover of the 1911 booklet, "Anthracitations by Phoebe
Snow" :
Phoebe says
And Phoebe knows
That smoke and cinders
Spoil good Clothes -
'Tis thus a pleasure
And Delight
To take the Road
Because the government purchased all the hard coal for
28
their war efforts, the D. L. & W. was forced to use the
dirtier and sootier soft coal and thus the spotless white
dress of Phoebe Snow became a thing of the past. After
the advent of World War I, Phoebe Snow was no longer seen in
the D. L. & W. advertisements, but she was resurrected for a
brief time on three separate occasions during the 1930s and
1940s. In September of 1930, when the electric train was
introduced, Phoebe Snow reappeared in her white dress and
gloves to promote a more pervasive cleanliness in railroad
travel. Miss Snow's next appearance was during the second
World War in which she was dressed, not in her customary
white, but in an olive drab uniform, in an attempt to
promote the activities of the War Department.29 The final
appearance of Phoebe Snow, this time once again portrayed by
the original Mrs. Murray, was in November of 1949 when the
D. L. & W.'s newer and cleaner diesel streamliner was
christened the xPhoebe Snow'.30
29
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO
1 . Lackawanna: The Route of Phoebe Snow; Brief History
of the Railroad with Photographs and Descriptions of its
Motives Power. D. L. & W. Railroad Publication, (n.p.,
n.d. ) .
2. Thomas Murphy, Lackawanna County, Penna . : Story of
Interesting Events from Indian Occupancy of Valley,
Connecticut Settlement, Organization of Luzerne County.
Start of Anthracite Industry, and Forty Years Effort to
Establish Lackawanna County Vol. I (Topeka, KS : Historical
Publishing Company, 1928), pp. 100, 102.
3. Lackawanna: The Route of Phoebe Snow, n.p.
4. Thomas Townsend Taber, The Delaware, Lackawanna &
Western Railroad**The Road of Anthracite**in the Nineteenth
Century, 1828-1899: The History of the Formation and
Development of the D. L. & W. A Family' of Railroads, and
Their Locomotives, which, in the Following Century Became
One of Our Most Admired and Beloved Railroads (Muncy, PA:
Thomas T. Taber III, 1977), pp. 19, 22.
5. Taber, The D. L. & W. in the Nineteenth Century, pp.
22, 78.
6. The Paintings of George Inness at The University of
Texas (University Art Museum at the University of Texas,
1965) , p. 14.
Also: American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River
School (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), p. 234.
7. Paintings of George Inness. p. 14.
8. American Paradise, p. 234.
9. American Paradise, pp. 234-235.
10. Summering on the Lackawanna. D. L. & W. Railroad
Publication (n.p., 1897).
Also: Will Bogert Hunter, Ghost of the Glacier and Other
Tales (Chicago: Henry 0. Shepard Co. , 1900) .
11. Catalogue of Pictures and Exhibits of the
Lackawanna Railroad at the Pan-American Exposition D. L. &
W. Railroad Publication (n.p., 1901).
12. Thomas Townsend Taber and Thomas Townsend Taber
III, The Delaware. Lackawanna & Western in the Twentieth
Century*The Road of Anthracite*in the Twentieth Century.
1899-1960 2 Vols. Vol.2. (Muncy, PA: Thomas T. Taber III,
1981) , pp. 392, 395, 398.
13. Will Bogert Hunter, Lake and Mountain Regions of
New Jersey (Chicago: Henry 0. Shepard Co., 1900), n.p.
14. Taber, The D. L. & W. in the Twentieth Century, p.
395.
15. John Allen Murphy, "Station Grounds for Town
Betterment," House and Garden 50 (August 1926), p. 89.
16. In Binder, "Interesting Items Prior to 1904," The
D. L. & W. Railroad Curatorial Collection, PHMC Railroad
Museum, Strasburg.
17. A Romance of the Rail D. L. & W. Railroad
Publication (n.p., 1901).
18. A Romance of the Rail, n.p.
19. Taber, The D. L. & W. in the Nineteenth Century, p.
397.
20. Taber, The D. L. & W. in the Nineteenth Century, p.
394.
21. Taber, The D. L. & W. in the Nineteenth Century, p.
398.
22. The Story of Phoebe Snow in Binder, "Interesting
Items: 1904-1960," D. L. & W. Railroad Publication (n.p.,
n.d.) .
23. Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1910; reprint, New
York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1962), p. 31.
24. Anthracitations by Phoebe Snow D. L. & W. Railroad
Publication (n.p., 1911).
25. Taber, The D. L. & W. in the Nineteenth Century, p.
396.
26. Taber, The D. L. & W. in the Nineteenth Century, p.
393.
27. Anthracitations . n.p.
31
28. Taber, The D. L. & W. in the Nineteenth Century,
pp. 397, 398.
29. Taber, The D. L. & W. in the Nineteenth Century,
p. 398.
30. Taber, The D. L. & W. in the Nineteenth Century
p. 398.
32
THE RAILROAD AND THE NATURAL LANDSCAPE
American Attitudes Toward the Landscape
During the nineteenth century, American attitudes
toward the landscape around them underwent a drastic change
brought on primarily by the industrial revolution and its
pervasive effects. While the colonists had viewed their
newly discovered landscape as a limitless wilderness that
needed to be tamed and brought under control, nineteenth-
century Americans began to perceive the landscape as a
beautiful and awe-inspiring asset of their recently
conquered country. For the purposes of this study, American
perceptions of nature and landscape during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries may be generalized and categorized
into three distinct phases.
The initial phase occurred during the years of
colonization when the first European settlers came to the
New World. These early inhabitants thought of untouched
nature as wild and often viewed the surrounding landscape
with fear.1 The turn of the century and beginning of the
1800s brought with it a great deal of exploration into the
American wilderness and subsequently an increasing
appreciation for the magnificence of American's nature.
Following the gradual recognition of the untainted beauty of
nature in this country came the realization that the
unhindered despoliation and destruction of the land by man
33
could prove to be irreversible.3 As industrialization
swallowed the land, depleting it of natural resources like
iron, coal, and virgin forests, some Americans began to fear
that their own actions would destroy the beauty they had
come to revere.4
In the early decades of American settlement, the
colonists had little time to appreciate the wild beauty
indigenous to their new home. For those settlers determined
to transform this untamed land into a civilized place, the
infinite wilderness surrounding them was to be viewed as a
separate and dangerous world where untold evils lurked,
usually in the form of "savage beasts, and scarcely less
savage men."5 The American settlers feared the unknown,
those things that they could not see, explain, or control.
But as various expeditions, like Lewis and Clark's
explorations from 1804-1806, provided the people with
descriptions and maps of new lands, the country and its
landscape became more understandable. As the colonists
gradually pushed farther and farther into unknown territory,
subjugating both the Indians and the land as they went, the
American landscape acquired a less sinister appearance.6
By the middle of the nineteenth century, a great deal
of the country had been investigated and surveyed. Journals
and illustrations from explorers' travels became extremely
popular as they allowed the rest of the American population
who were settled in small towns along the eastern seaboard
34
an opportunity to participate vicariously in these
expeditions.7 The variety and expansiveness of the
untouched American landscape surely impressed its new
inhabitants who had recently left a European landscape whose
"primitive features of scenery [had] long since been
destroyed or modified."8
As a result of expeditions like that of Lewis and
Clark, American artists and writers began to depict nature
and the landscape in a different manner, one which showed a
new, idealized view of their surroundings. Nature no longer
inspired fear but rather a sense of awe and appreciation, a
notion which was inspired by the European romantic movement.
The artists and writers of this period, as well as the
general American population, revelled in the natural,
relatively untouched beauty of their country. Men like
William Cullen Bryant, Thomas Cole, James Fenimore Cooper
and Washington Irving used prose to celebrate "the
loveliness of verdant fields, the sublimity of lofty
mountains, or the varied magnificence of the sky,..." in the
"wild and uncultivated scenery" of the country.9 Likewise,
artists began to celebrate the country's native beauty as
landscape painting came to the forefront of American art.
As William Cullen Bryant wrote in the preface to Picturesque
America in 1874, "Art sigh[ed] to carry her conquests in to
new realms [and in] our Republic she [found] them -
primitive forests, in which the huge trunks of a past
35
generation of trees be mouldering in the shade of their aged
descendants; mountains and valleys, gorges and rivers, and
tracts of sea-coast, . . . [and] glens murmuring with water-
falls."10
Through the watercolor and oil paintings of Thomas
Cole, Jasper Cropsey, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Moran,
Frederick Church, and Albert Bierstadt, the American public
first became more aware of their surroundings and better
able to identify with the landscape. Scenes from places
like the Catskills and the Adirondacks or the Hudson River
in New York, and the Poconos or the Delaware Water Gap in
Pennsylvania, were common subjects of nineteenth-century
American landscape painting and provided viewers with a
glimpse of unspoiled nature close to home. Using the
mountainous regions of New York, the Adirondacks and
Catskills, as the source of their inspiration, the Hudson
River School, the best-known group of landscape painters
during this period, portrayed "the picturesque, the sublime
and the magnificent" of America's countryside.11 They
focused on the mountains, the lakes and rivers, the
waterfalls, and the forests of the northeastern regions of
the United States. Perhaps one of the most important
contributions of the Hudson River School to American
attitudes towards the landscape was their nostalgic
perception of nature. These artists recognized the
ephemeral quality of the American landscape and attempted to
36
capture this characteristic for eternity. When Thomas Cole
was commissioned by Luman Reed to paint a series of five
paintings titled The Course of Empire, he wrote to Reed in
1833 that the paintings would "illustrate the history of a
natural scene, as well as be an epitome of Man, - showing
the natural changes of landscape, and those effected by man
in his progress from barbarism to civilization - to luxury -
to the vicious state, or state of destruction - and to the
state of ruin and desolation."12 By capturing a single
instant on canvas, the landscape painter recorded for
posterity his impression of one moment in a constantly
changing scene.
At around the same time that the Hudson River School
was producing its masterpieces of the American landscape,
the technological advances and inventions of the industrial
era were re-shaping the countryside.13 As exploration and
exploitation of natural resources spread farther west and
industrialization transformed the urban centers and their
immediate environs, Americans began to be concerned with the
effects of progress on the land.14 One could broadly
generalize that while the generations before them had been
afraid of nature, people in the latter half of the
nineteenth century were now afraid for nature. Some
Americans began to "regret that with the improvements of
cultivation the sublimity of the wilderness should pass
away."15 This new fear that the American landscape was
37
being irrevocably destroyed sparked a widespread concern for
the fate of existing unspoiled lands and sites of exquisite
natural beauty like Niagara Falls. These fears and concerns
manifested themselves in the establishment of national parks
and wilderness preserves. Following the exploration of vast
areas of the West and the subsequent portrayal of these
regions by artists such as Bierstadt and Moran, Yosemite
became the first state park in 1864 and then Yellowstone was
set aside for the American people as the country's first
national park in 1872. Niagara Falls was established as a
national park in 1885, and Yosemite followed suit in 1890.
All of these areas had been brought to national attention by
the writers and artists of this period.16
Meanwhile, the recently developed railroad, which
dominated the landscape, certainly furthered the settlement
of the continent by uniting the Eastern and Western United
States.17 However, it also contributed to the destruction
of the wild American landscape by transporting hoards of
people to settle and transform the West, scarring the land
with its rails in the process. The railroad also attempted
to capitalize on the American desire to witness first-hand
what they had seen in art, which resulted in a burgeoning
tourism industry18. The advent of railroad excursions
during the 1870s and 1880s proved to be extremely lucrative
for the railroad companies.19 These trips allowed thousands
of nineteenth-century Americans to explore the rapidly
38
disappearing pristine landscape and provided them with a
means of escape from an increasingly technical society, all
at a substantial profit for the railroad companies.20 The
railroad was viewed by many as a "chariot winging Americans
on an aesthetic journey through the new empire"21 and
brought with it yet another perception of the landscape.
While the Hudson River School artists captured a single
moment of a scene, the view from a railroad car, which was a
"moving window on the country," was even more ephemeral.22
Only a general impression of the unfolding scenery was
captured, and once passed, the image was gone, surviving
only as a memory in the mind of each individual traveller.23
As Mrs. Frank Leslie wrote in her description of a cross-
country excursion in 1877 titled California: A Pleasure Trip
from Gotham to the Golden Gate, "we have no time for
geological or scientific studies just now... while the
rapidly moving train whirls us through this region, where
Nature seems to have indulged herself in mad, purposeless
exercise of her vastest powers, with little heed for man's
approval or convenience."24 The railroad companies
enthusiastically courted this new type of patron; numerous
illustrated guidebooks and colorful advertisements in
newspapers and magazines bear witness to the railroads'
efforts. Each railroad claimed to have the one route that
featured America's most inspiring countryside.
In addition, the companies sought to enhance their
39
passengers' enjoyment of nature while on these excursions by
introducing observation cars with swivel chairs and larger
windows.26 The D. L. & W. claimed that,
No trip is far where comforts are,
An Observation Lounging Car,
Adds new delight to Phoebe's flight
Along the Road of Anthracite.
The railroad companies also added observation decks to the
rear of their trains and beautified the travellers' points
of departure and arrival - the railroad station.
The Vacation: Tourism and Excursions
Around mid-century, many Americans, and particularly
urban reformers, became disgruntled with urban life and the
negative effects wrought on it by the technological and
social changes of the period.28 In the years following the
Civil War, residents of America's cities found themselves in
desperate need of relief from the anxiety, monotony, and
impersonality of urban life. In 1867, Donald G. Mitchell
observed that, "[e]very season there [was] a whirl of
citizens, tired of city heats and costs, traversing the
country in half hope of being wooed to some summer home,
where the trees and order invite [d] tranquility and
promise [d] enjoyment."29 The necessity for leisure time and
the chance to escape the malevolence of the city became top
priorities for nineteenth-century Americans and thus the
concept of vacation began to pervade all levels of society.
40
Americans increasingly fled the cities during the summer
months, leaving behind the heat, the smell, the epidemic
diseases, and the 'moral depravity1 of the metropolitan
centers for the slow-paced environment of the cooler,
cleaner, verdant countryside on the periphery. "The veneer
of civilization with which, unfortunately, most [urbanites
were] clothed by circumstance, [was] fast becoming a
discarded garment during the summer months."30 The editor
of Putnam's Monthly noted this growing trend in June of
1856, commenting on "what a thoroughly modern phenomena it
[was], this practice of 'emptying' the town" during the
summer months.31 Throughout the eastern seaboard, in places
like New York City, Philadelphia, and Boston, people of
various economic means were travelling to the seashore, to
the mountains of Pennsylvania and New York, to the springs
of Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia, and to the
wilderness of Maine, New Hampshire, and Canada.
While at first only the wealthier upper classes could
take advantage of a summer vacation and travel to the
numerous exclusive luxury resorts that catered expressly to
them, it was the advent of the railroad excursion that
democratized travel during the last three decades of the
nineteenth century.32 The railroad, of course, played a
significant part in developing this new type of tourism in
America by recognizing the profitability of excursions and
providing greater access to vacation areas.33 Capitalizing
on the American desire to experience nature first-hand, the
railroad companies portrayed travel by train as an
^aesthetic experience, ■ an activity unto itself and not
merely a means of getting from one place to another. Along
with the rise of the summer vacation and the weekend
excursion came the first tourist agencies, companies who
organized trips, attracted clients, and were paid a
commission by the railroad companies. Two of the earliest
agencies were Thomas Cook & Son, imported from England
around 18 65, and Raymond and Whitcomb Travel Agency, founded
in 1879 by the son of a railroad company president. Raymond
and Whitcomb, in conjunction with various railroad
companies, provided excursions to the West, including
California, Yellowstone, and the Rockies.34 Eventually, the
railroad companies decided to provide their own tourist
services via the passenger agent, rather that pay
commissions to outside agencies. The competition between
the railroad companies and the tourist agencies was
obviously fierce, judging from the variety and number of
brochures, guidebooks, and advertisements created by
individual companies.
In 1872, the railroad passenger agents organized
themselves into an association whose primary function was to
agree on common excursion rates and thus to compete en masse
with the tourist agencies.35 One of the most successful
railroad companies in the excursion business was the
42
Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, whose brochures and
booklets highlighting the Pennsylvania and New Jersey
landscape as their major selling point will be discussed
later in this chapter. Like the railroad companies, the
tourist agencies also attempted to solicit business by
appealing to the American need for an acceptable means of
escaping the ills of the metropolis. Thomas Cook & Son
produced a promotional magazine called Cook's Excursionist,
which served to advertise their services and to legitimize
leisure time. In an August, 1901 issue, the editorial told
its reader to "regard [a vacation] as a duty to himself and
his family, and [that he] should plan for it as a necessary
hygienic measure."36 In addition to the propaganda issued
by the railroad companies and travel agencies, a flurry of
new magazines and journals aimed at perpetuating the rising
interest in nature, outdoor recreation, and scenic travel
appeared during the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. These publications, as confirmed by John Stilgoe
in Borderland, were devoted to all types of restorative
leisure activity, including camping, bird-watching, and
outdoor sports like hiking, canoeing, and fishing. Some of
these magazines and journals aimed at recreation included
Country Life in America. Field and Stream, Living Age,
Outlook. Overland Monthly, and Outing.
This varied literature was successful in popularizing
excursion trips, since railroad travel experienced a seventy
43
percent increase during the last fifteen years of the
nineteenth century.38 The new phenomenon of "the vacation"
continued to draw more and more of the American people into
its grasp as they entered into the twentieth century and
railroad excursions gained popularity among people of all
economic and social levels. Decreasing travel costs,
particularly in train fares, rising average income, and the
institutionalization of paid vacations allowed more and more
Americans to experience the landscape around them by way of
excursions. Just as in the industrial era of the nineteenth
century, "there [was] an increasing tendency among the
dwellers in [the] municipal canyons to seek some antidote
for the necessarily congested life of the larger cities, to
get back to nature- to a wooded retreat in some unspoiled
region - and there to relax completely."39
The D. L. & W. in the Countryside of Pennsylvania and New
Jersey
The railroad companies of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries obviously were a major force in shaping
American ideas about recreation and leisure time as well as
about the landscape.40 The railroads used the landscape as
a means of attracting customers and encouraging tourism.
One of the companies who extensively used the appeal of the
countryside along their rail lines to entice travellers was
the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. The D. L. & W.
44
was acutely aware of the landscape around it and used every
opportunity to promote its railroad as a vehicle for viewing
the magnificent scenery indigenous to the area. There was
so much unspoiled landscape along the lines of the railroad
during this period that it was unnecessary to manipulate the
scenery in any way; the natural beauty spoke for itself.
Eventually, however, the path of progress altered this
relatively pristine environment, and the D. L. & W. was
forced to intervene in an attempt to maintain an attractive
route for its patrons. This direct manipulation of the
railroad company's lands will be examined further in the
following two chapters.
Concentrating on the Poconos, the Delaware Water Gap,
and Lake Hopatcong, the D. L. & W. produced and published
dozens of advertisements, promotional booklets, and
brochures around the turn of the century. (see Illustration
5) Ranging in their subject matter from simple
illustrations of scenes along the routes of the D. L. & W. ,
to poems and short stories, to recommendations on hunting
and fishing, these publications glorified the mountainous
region of Monroe County, Pennsylvania and the lake area of
Morris and Sussex Counties, New Jersey as less crowded, and
more affordable alternatives to the Adirondacks, Catskills,
and Lake George in New York.41
Morris and Sussex Counties in northern New Jersey have
long attracted people in search of a healthier environment
than that found in the squalor of the urban centers. As
early as the 1700s, the first travellers journeyed into this
region seeking mineral water cures at Schooley's Mountain
Spring near Budd Lake.42 In their Pan-American catalogue,
the D. L. & W. cited Schooley's Mountain as one of the
famous resorts of the country where tourists came to take
the waters of the chalybeate spring that had been discovered
by the Indians/3 An 1890 guidebook of the area claimed
that the spring was "very effective in certain diseases and
invigorating in all cases...."44 Although the introduction
of the railroad at mid-century allowed for some exploitation
of the area's natural resources, iron ore and ice,
recreation and tourism remained the primary industries. The
clean water, pure air, and predominantly undeveloped
countryside which was promoted by the D. L. & W. continued
to draw people to it throughout the nineteenth century and
into the twentieth century. The D. L. & W. capitalized on
the close proximity of these two counties to New York City
and their accessibility by way of the railroad's main line,
which stretched from Hoboken, through northern New Jersey
and eastern Pennsylvania up to Buffalo, New York. (see
Illustration 5)
Morris and Sussex Counties are just thirty to fifty
miles outside of New York City, and with their combination
of mountains and over two hundred lakes and ponds, they
provided an ideal haven for urban sportsmen and those
46
seeking a healthy vacation from the city. The Kittatinny
Mountains and Lake Mohawk in Sussex County, and the Green
Pond Mountain range and Lake Hopatcong in Morris County drew
hundreds of city dwellers into New Jersey on weekend
excursions and summer vacations. (see Illustration 6) This
area was promoted for its "variety of mountain ranges,
chains of hills and magnificent intervening valleys,
beautiful streams and pretty lakes."45 Lake Hopatcong, the
largest of the New Jersey lakes, covering more than two
hundred acres, was a popular excursion destination from the
184 0s onward.46 Often called the Lake George of New Jersey,
it rose "from among the hills [and] greet[ed] the beholder
with one of nature's friendliest smiles."47 A nearby tavern
served travellers passing through the region by coach, and
by the middle of the century regular carriage excursions
were commonplace.48 A few years later, the D. L. & W.
brought its x scenic route of charm1 into the area, with its
line running directly by the lake.49 Lake Hopatcong was
transparently green and, being full of black bass, pickerel,
and catfish, was the "rendezvous of expert fishermen and
fisherwomen."50 By the turn of the century, dozens of
hotels had been built around the lake and the area had
become a popular resort spot, due entirely to the landscape
and the transportation that made it accessible. (see
Illustration 7)
Across the Delaware River from Morris and Sussex
47
Counties is Monroe County, Pennsylvania, a topographically
similar region that is best known for the magnificent
Delaware Water Gap and the popular Pocono Mountains. After
a trip to this region in 1841, Washington Irving wrote to
his cousin that "for upwards of ninety miles [he] went
through a constant succession of scenery that would have
been famous had it existed in any part of Europe."
Development and more extensive settlement came to this area
between the river and the mountains during the first decade
of the 1800s, when the first road through the Delaware Water
Gap was constructed and a road across the Poconos was built
by the newly established Wilkes Barre - Easton Turnpike
Company.52 Ferries across the river linked these main
Pennsylvania roads with those of New Jersey. The D. L. & W.
railroad's main line, which made its debut around the middle
of the century, connected Scranton to Tobyhanna, crossed the
Pocono Mountains at Pocono Summit and Mt. Pocono, through
Analomink and Stroudsburg, across the river at the Delaware
Water Gap and into New Jersey. (see Illustration 5)
The Delaware Water Gap area had been popularized by
landscape painters of the latter half of the nineteenth
century; George Inness featured this exquisite subject in
two of his paintings and William Cullen Bryant included a
colored lithograph of it in his 1874 Picturesque
America. (see Illustrations 2, 8) This area, noted for its
spectacular views and excellent fishing and boating, quickly
blossomed into a popular resort spot. The D. L. & W. and
the resorts of the Water Gap and the Poconos enjoyed an
extremely successful symbiotic relationship in which both
entities used the landscape and each other to promote their
respective businesses. The D. L. & W.'s advertising
campaign centered around the glorification of the nearby
landscape and enticed customers with the promise of a
variety of luxury accommodations at journey's end. In 1900,
the D. L. & W. published a directory of lodging available in
the area. This pamphlet, entitled "Hotels and Boarding
Houses on the Lines of the Lackawanna Railroad," included
all the information desired by prospective tourists.
Besides the name of each hotel or house, the pamphlet listed
their distances from the railroad station, their capacity
and rates, and critiqued the quality of the fishing and
shooting nearby.53 The resorts continued the campaign in
the same vein, also using the landscape to attract people to
their hotels and benefitted from the quick, convenient and
comfortable access provided by the D. L. & W.
One of the many ways in which the D. L. & W. promoted
itself was by offering selected excursions to the most
scenic regions of its domain. In addition to public
excursions, the railroad also hosted a number of exclusive
ones for specific national organizations. These convention
excursions exposed large groups of businessmen to the D. L.
& W. . In 1899, members of the American Association of
49
General Passenger & Ticket Agents were encouraged to
patronize the D. L. & W. railroad enroute to the society's
forty-fourth annual convention. The association was wooed
with promises of "a landscape radiant in the gorgeous beauty
of Autumn; fields of amber and brown; mountains buried
'neath all the warm hues of Nature; valleys where green
borders the silver of sweeping and rippling rills. "(see
Illustration 9)
In June 1902, the D. L. & W.'s advertising agent, W. P.
Colton, in a clever attempt to publicize the railroad,
decided to invite all the editors of the various New York
city newspapers on a special two-day excursion to observe
the making of a series of Phoebe Snow advertisements. (see
Illustration 10) While the editors would have the pleasure
of accompanying Phoebe Snow through the Delaware Water Gap
to Mt. Pocono, the railroad, in turn, was guaranteed free
and extensive media coverage. To entice the newspaper
editors to participate in this excursion, Mr. Colton sent
out invitations with a poem that made the journey sound
irresistible:
Swinging through the forests,
rattling over ridges,
Shooting under arches,
rumbling over bridges;
Whizzing through the mountains,
buzzing o'er the vale -
Bless me! This is pleasant
riding on the rail.54
The D. L. & W. also invited members of the Association
50
of American Railway Accounting Officers to use the railroad
while participating in their Seventeenth Annual Meeting,
which was held in New York City in 1905. This gracious
invitation was illustrated by a dramatic view of the
Delaware Water Gap. (see Illustration 11)
Excursions for the general public were also made
available by the D. L. & W. and featured such destinations
as Rockaway Beach and Cranberry Lake. (see Illustrations 12,
13) The 1885 excursion to Rockaway Beach went from Orange,
just outside of Newark, to Morristown, and passed through
the villages of South Orange, Milburn, Chatham, and Madison
en route.55 A 1902 publication expressly advertised
Cranberry Lake, New Jersey, as a pleasure resort and picnic
ground owned by the D. L. & W.56 The lake was located in
Sussex County, near Lake Hopatcong along the railroad's main
line from Hoboken to Scranton. The railroad company was
explicitly encouraging excursions to Cranberry Lake for
church groups, Sunday schools, lodges, and clubs, and
promised nooks and groves for quiet resting and outdoor
activities like lawn bowling, quoits, boating, and
bathing.57
The Pocono Mountain Special was "designed particularly
for business men and others desiring to spend Sunday in the
mountains. . .an alluring Resort for Health and Pleasure."
This excursion, described in the pamphlet, "Pocono Mountain
Special to the Lake & Mountain Resorts on the Lackawanna,"
51
took passengers from New York City directly to the Delaware
Water Gap and then onto Tobyhanna , the summit of the
Poconos.
The railroad apparently continued to promote these
kinds of excursions up until the second World War. In 1931,
a brochure titled, "Enroute to New York via Lackawanna,"
elaborated on the "healthy climate and scenic beauty" of the
region still serviced by the D. L. & W.59 The Poconos in
particular were highlighted as "the world's most scenically
admired mountain districts with a wealth of natural beauty,
sparkling trout streams and waterfalls, fine drives and cool
walks over the mountain highways, roads unsurpassed for
beauty and lined for miles... with banks of laurel and
rhododendron." As if that were not enough incentive to
travel on the Lackawanna, a clever poem was included in this
brochure:
There are waves of billowy blossoms
On the hillside now, I know
And the laurel foam is breaking
On the heights of Pocono.
Far below the rolling tree tops
Lie, an endless, emerald sea.
And the soft, South wind is singing
Its own symphony to me.
I can hear the mountain torrents
Splash and tumble, leap and glide
Through the rhododendron tangles
Where the speckled beauties hide.
And I wonder if the whip-poor-will
I heard that night in June,
Is complaining from the thicket
To another rising moon.
Through the open office window
Comes the clangor of the street,
52
The traffic of the trolley
And the tramp of tired feet,
But the South wind's softly calling,
And I know it's time to go,
For the laurel foam is breaking
On the heights of Pocono.60
As has been mentioned previously, the D. L. & W. was
particularly aggressive in its advertising, capitalizing on
the natural assets of the landscape which bordered its
various routes. The executives of the railroad and its
advertising agency were guick to recognize, in the inherent
beauty of the surrounding countryside, a means of attracting
customers and thus of increasing their revenue. This
practise became evident through my study of the actual
advertisements, booklets, and brochures distributed by the
company from the 1870s well into the 1930s.
In 1874, J. K. Hoyt first brought the scenic route of
the D. L. & W. to the general public's attention with his
small book, Pen and Pencil Pictures on the Delaware.
Lackawanna, and Western Railroad. This booklet consisted of
a collection of small engravings which illustrated the
countryside along the lines of the railroad and supplemented
the text.61 Despite this early attempt at publicizing the
scenery, cleanliness, and safety of the ^Route of
Anthracite, • it was not until the end of the century that
the railroad really began in earnest to market the landscape
for profit.
"Summering on the Lackawanna" was published in 1897 and
53
included wonderful scenic vignettes of the landscape and
written descriptions of the suburban communities and
vacation spots along the main line of the D. L. & W. This
promotional booklet was apparently designed to give its
readers a glimpse of the sites they might see while taking
an excursion or travelling to a resort destination for a
summer holiday. About the Delaware Water Gap, the railroad
wrote, "of all the resorts along the. . .Lackawanna, none is
more strikingly beautiful than this great handiwork of
Nature."63
In addition to the beauty of the natural landscape
displayed in these photographs, there was also iconographic
evidence that the landscape could be artificially or
artfully manipulated by man. For example, a pair of images
highlighting the Stroudsburg Station featured circular
flower beds amidst extensive landscaping that surrounded the
station building and as such presented the railroad in a
favorable manner ."(see Illustration 14) It was a more
active technique than simple featuring God's handiwork as an
incentive to take the train, and this additional design
element will be discussed in greater depth in the following
chapters. The practise of using both the natural and
designed landscape as an advertisement for the railroad
company was consequently an explicit indication of the
importance of landscaped environs to the railroad. The
overwhelmingly successful ^ Phoebe Snow' campaign, as
54
discussed in Chapter Two, depended on both poetic jingles
and delightful illustrations to portray an attractive image
of the railroad and its environs. Another powerful
tool for attracting customers proved to be the use of prose,
which the company turned to in 1900 with the publication of
a group of short stories written by Will Bogert Hunter.
Issued by the D. L. & W. Railroad, "Line of Legend, Lore and
Beauty," the ten chapters of Ghost of the Glacier and Other
Tales included both fictional and non-fictional articles on
the railroad, its surrounding landscape, and the history of
the adjacent areas. Besides the title story, "Ghost of the
Glacier," there were nine others, including "Nine Hundred
Square Miles of Grandeur"; "Making a Revolution"; "New
Jersey as a Summer Resort"; "Sculpture of the Elfs";
"Susquehanna Trail"; "Once a Pillar of the World"; "Feathers
of Fashion"; "Four Hundred Miles of Beauty"; and "Just a
Thousand Words about the Lackawanna Railroad".65 "Ghost of
the Glacier" told the story of the making of the Jersey
highlands. Written in the first person, from the ghost's
point of view, this story details the transformation of a
snowflake into a glacier that shaped the lake and mountain
region of New Jersey. "To this day, in damp or wet weather,
a thin vapor rises from the mountain, and if a shout be
given an answer rolls back. Men say it is the camp fire and
the cry of Quaquahela. It is the form and voice of the
55
story of the Delaware Water Gap and the nearby Pocono
Mountains. In this piece, an elfin king, Majesty, creates a
dream court and a magnificent estate for his bride, Beauty.
Their realm, of course, was the present-day region near the
'Once a
Pillar of the World," and "Feathers of Fashion" told the
stories of Oswego and Ritchfield Springs, New York,
respectively.
In 1903, Passenger Agent T. W. Lee undertook an
extensive advertising campaign to promote vacationing in the
Pocono Mountains and the Delaware Water Gap area.
Illustrations that depicted a handsome couple enjoying
outdoor activities like horseback riding and canoeing
appeared in over one hundred newspapers and magazines
throughout the country. (see Illustrations 15, 16) And, for
those desiring more information about this scenic area of
eastern Pennsylvania, an illustrated booklet titled, "For
Reasons of State" was available from the railroad company.
The Poconos were described in their advertisement as " a
region of woodland and water, 2000 feet above sea level...,
dry, cool and invigorating," and boasted " splendid roads
[and] modern hotels."68 The Delaware Water Gap, "in the
Blue Ridge Mountains..., surrounded by delightful resorts"
was touted as "an ideal region for spring and summer."69
Around this same time, T. W. Lee produced additional
brochures in an effort to appeal directly to New York City
56
sportsmen and to encourage them to journey to places like
Lake Hopatcong, the Delaware Water Gap, and the Poconos.
The railroad compiled a list of selected trout streams and
published them in "Trout Fishing in the Pocono Mountains."70
Another similar pamphlet was, "A Few Pointers about Trout
Fishing and Shooting along the Lackawanna Railroad" that
enumerated the "hard, cold facts" substantiating the D. L. &
W.'s claim that it had "the best fishing and shooting
territory in its section of the country . "71 (see Illustration
17) According to the brochure, which was actually a sample
page from a book that was in press at the time, 250 agents
were surveyed in order to determine the guality of the
region. Ninety-three agents reported bass in their
environs, while five reported deer, and in between were
reports of rabbit, pickerel, guail and partridge, trout,
perch, squirrel, fox, pheasant, woodcock, and bear.72
Many years later, in 1940, the D. L. & W. published
what appears to be one of their last major attempts to
promote the resort areas of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. (see
Illustration 18) The booklet, "Mountain & Lake Resorts,"
contained two-page descriptions of these various vacation
spots as well as distances and fares from New York City and
Buffalo. "Painters," the railroad wrote, "ha[d] known the
Poconos for a long time, and so ha[d] people who g[ot] all a
painter's pleasure from a landscape without having his pains
trying to record it on canvas."73 Again, the laurels and
57
rhododendrons were praised, as were the exquisite fall
colors and spaciousness inherent to the region. A The
Delaware Water Gap, always a dramatic spectacle, was touted
as "the gateway to the playground of the East." Because
of "rapid railroad service," this area had been transformed
into a year-round weekend resort, featuring "winter
sports summer golf and swimming and riding, hiking,
and hunting" in the spring and fall.
The D. L. & W. also published some other undated
publications that likewise were aimed at drawing more people
into the countryside of New Jersey and Pennsylvania by way
of the railroad. "Landmarks of Historic Interest Along the
Lackawanna Railroad" gives a brief history of the region and
spotlights some of the significant stops along the way,
including the Delaware Water Gap.77 Other publications that
featured communities in New Jersey will be examined in
Chapter Five. All of these various types of advertising
served to emphasize and glorify the landscape of Sussex,
Morris and Monroe Counties, which in turn brought large
profits for the D. L. & W. Railroad as well as for the
resort industry of the area.
58
NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE
1. Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1967), p. 26.
2. Nash, p. 44.
3. Nash, p. 96.
4. John R. Stilgoe, The Common American Landscape,
1580-1845 (New HaveniYale University Press, 1982), p. 6.
5. Thomas Cole, "Essay on American Scenery," in
Marshall Tymn, ed. , The Collected Essays and Prose Sketches
(St. Paul, MN: The John Colet Press, 1980), p. 7.
6. Nash, pp. 24-25, 27.
7. Thomas Bender, Toward An Urban Vision: Ideas and
Institutions in Nineteenth Centurv America (Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), p. 7.
8. Cole, p. 8.
9. Cole, pp. 4-5.
10. William Cullen Bryant, Picturesque America: Or the
Land We Live in. A Delineation by Pen and Pencil of the
Mountains. Rivers. Lakes. Forests. Water Falls, Shores,
Canvons, Valleys. Cities and other Picturesque Features of
our Country Vol 1(1874; reprint, New York: American Heritage
Publishing Co., Inc., 1974), preface.
11. Cole, p. 9.
12. Richard J. Koke, comp. , American Landscape and
Genre Paintings in the New York Historical Society (New
York: The New York Historical Society, 1982), p. 186.
13. Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America:
Culture & Society in the Gilded Age (New York: Hill and
Wang, 1982) , p. 19.
14. Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American
Experience (Lincoln,: University of Nebraska Press, 1979),
p. 44;
Also: Nash, p. 96.
15. Cole, p. 8.
16. Runte, p. 14.
59
17. John Brinckerhof f Jackson, American Space: The
Centennial Years. 1865-1876 (New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, Inc., 1972), p. 67.
18. Peter J. Schmitt, Back to Nature: The Arcadian Myth
in Urban America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969),
p. 159.
19. Dyan Zaslowsky and The Wilderness Society, These
American Lands: Parks. Wilderness, and the Public Lands (New
York: Henry Holt and Company, 1986) , p. 16.
Also: Runte, p. 83.
20. Susan Danly Walther, "The Railroad and Western
Tourism," Nineteenth Century 7, no. 2(1981), p. 58.
21. Trachtenberg, p. 19.
22. Nancy Gibbs, "You Can't Get There from Here," Time
Magazine (October 16, 1989) , p. 61.
23. John R. Stilgoe, Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads
and the American Scene (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1983), p. 250.
24. Walther, p. 57.
25. Schmitt, p. 148.
26. Hotels and Boarding Houses on the Lines of
Lackawanna Railroad D. L. & W. Railroad Publication (n.p.,
1900) .
27. The Story of Phoebe Snow, in Binder, "Interesting
Items: 1904-1960" D. L. & W. Railroad Publication (n.p.,
n.d.) .
28. John R. Stilgoe, Borderland: Origins of the
American Suburb 1820-1939 (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1988) , p. 45.
29. Donald Grant Mitchell, Out of Town Places: With
Hints for their Improvement (18 67; reprint, New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884), p. 145.
30. Frank Fay, "xFayson Lake': A Log Cabin Retreat for
the Weary New Yorker," National Real Estate Journal (April
1, 1929) , p. 24.
31. "The World of New York," Putnam's Monthly 7 (June
1856), p. 659.
60
32. Hugh De Santis, "The Democratization of Travel: The
Travel Agent in American History," Journal of American
Culture 1(1978), pp. 7, 9.
33. Schmitt, p. 148.
34. Zaslowsky, p. 15.
35. De Santis, p. 8.
36. Cook's Excursionist (August 1901), in De Santis,
p. 10.
37. Stilgoe, Borderland, p. 190.
38. De Santis, p. 9.
39. Fay, p. 24.
40. Schmitt, pp. 148, 159; Stilgoe, Metropolitan
Corridor, pp. 249-257; Stilgoe, Borderland, p. 57.
41. Will Bogert Hunter, Ghost of the Glacier and Other
Tales Issued by the Lackawanna Railroad: Line of Legend,
Lore and Beauty. (Chicago: Henry 0. Shepard Co., 1900).
Also: Mountain and Lake Resorts (1940 and 1942) .
Also: Pocono Mountain Special to the Lake & Mountain Resorts
on the Lackawanna Railroad D. L. & W. Railroad Publication
(n.p., 1902).
42. Gustav Kobbe, Jersey Central: An Illustrated Guide-
Book (New York: De Leeuw & Oppenheimer, 1890), p. 77.
4 3 . Catalogue of Pictures and Exhibits of the
Lackawanna Railroad at the Pan-American Exposition (May 1-
November 1, 1901), D. L. & W. Railroad Publication (n.p.,
1901) , p. 4.
44. Kobbe, p. 76.
45. Hunter, "New Jersey as a Summer Resort," in Ghost
of the Glacier, n.p.
46. Hunter, Ghost of the Glacier n.p.
47. Kobbe, p. 87.
48. Kobbe, p. 91.
61
4 9 . Lackawanna: The Route of Phoebe Snow; Brief History
of the Railroad with Photographs and Descriptions of its
Motive Power D. L. & W. Railroad Publication (n.p., n.d.).
50. Summering on the Lackawanna D. L. & W. Railroad
Publication (n.p., 1897), p. 43.
51. Thomas Murphy, Lackawanna County. Penna.: Story of
Interesting Events from Indian Occupancy of Valley,
Connecticut Settlement, Organization of Luzerne County.
Start of Anthracite Industry, and Forty Years Effort to
Establish Lackawanna County Vol. I (Topeka, KS : Historical
Publishing Company, 1928), p. 95.
52. Kobbe, p. 77.
53 . Hotels and Boarding Houses.
54. In Binder, "Interesting Items Prior to 1904."
55. In Binder, "Interesting Items Prior to 1904."
56. Cranberry Lake: A Pleasure Resort D. L. & W.
Railroad Publication (n.p., 1902).
57 . Cranberry Lake.
58 . Pocono Mountain Special.
59. Enroute to New York via Lackawanna D. L. & W.
Railroad Publication (n.p., 1931).
60. Enroute to New York.
61. J. K. Hoyt, Pen and Pencil Pictures on the
Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad Issued by the
Lackawanna Railroad (New York: W. H. Cadwell, 1874) .
62 . Summering on the Lackawanna.
63. Summering on the Lackawanna, p. 54.
64. Summering on the Lackawanna, p. 59.
65. Hunter, Ghost of the Glacier.
66. Hunter, "Ghost of the Glacier," in Ghost of the
Glacier, n.p.
67. Hunter, "Sculpture of the Elfs," in Ghost of the
Glacier, n.p.
62
68. Advertisements (March 24, 1903) in Binder,
"Interesting Items Prior to 1904."
69. Advertisements (March 24, 1903) in Binder,
"Interesting Items Prior to 1904."
70. Trout Fishing in the Pocono Mountains, with a list
of elected" Trout Streams D. L. & W. Railroad Publication
(n.p., 1903).
71 a Few Pointers about Fishing and Shooting along
laSfcflMftnPfl Railroad D. L. & W. Railroad Publication (n.p.,
C. 1899) .
72 . A Few Pointers.
73. Mountain and Lake Resorts, p. 20.
74. Mountain and Lake Resorts, p. 20.
75. Mountain and Lake Resorts, p. 4.
76. Mountain and Lake Resorts, p. 4.
77. landmarks of TntP.rest Along the Lackawanna Railroad
D. L. & W. Railroad Publication (n.p., n.d.).
63
THE RAILROAD AND THE SUBURBS:
RIGHTS-OF-WAY & STATION GARDENS
Improvement Societies & Early Beautif ication Efforts
While the railroad companies indirectly used the
natural landscape as a tool to further their public image
and their profits, they also manipulated the landscape more
directly for their own benefit, resulting in the numerous
rights-of-way and station gardens evident throughout the
American suburbs which will be discussed in this chapter.
While excursion landscapes were expressly viewed by the
traveller on the train, station gardens were for both the
passenger and the stationary observer, be it the person
awaiting the train, or a resident of the town.
In response to the pressures of an increasingly
technical society, more and more Americans began to turn to
the smaller villages outside the metropolis as an
alternative to the cities that had become so crowded and
overbuilt that they effectively denied their residents any
association with nature. "The natural impulses of a crowded
population to ally themselves once again with the bounteous
amplitude of the field" led thousands of Americans around
the turn of the century to flee to the smaller communities
that were linked to the urban centers by the railroad.1 In
1895, Edward Bok pointed out the numerous faults of
America's urban centers, while promoting the morality of
64
life in the suburbs, where "we find the real American
life".2 Earlier, Frederick Law Olmsted, in his 1868
preliminary report on the proposed village of Riverside, had
referred to the suburbs as "the most attractive, the most
refined, and the most soundly wholesome form of domestic
life."3 "The real life-blood of our country [lay] not in
the great centres..." but rather in the suburban villages
whose residents are happier and healthier than their urban
peers/ More recently, these turn-of-the-century suburbs
have been described as "natural world[s] of greenery and
family life that appeared to be wholly separate from the
great city yet [were] in fact wholly dependent on it."
Even these outlying communities were- not entirely
beyond the reach of urban industrialization, and so, many of
them were shaped by the railroad, directly or indirectly.
Towns grew up around the railroad's newly built stations,
and older villages were "disemboweled by the railway" as it
charged through their midst, turning "all their showiness
inside out."6 Unfortunately, these small communities could
not ignore the railroad; the "towns and countryside [were
becoming] in appearance undeniably shabby" as a result of
the encroaching industrialism.
In an effort to preserve the natural beauty and
contented life of the suburban villages and to counteract
the adverse effects of industrialization and commercial
intrusion, the village improvement society was created. The
65
lve
first such group, the Laurel Hill Society, was founded in
1853 by the Massachusetts farming community of Stockbridge.
This pioneer group successfully transformed the unattracti
areas of their village into Paradise by planting trees,
constructing walks, and creating parks throughout the
community, as well as by planting a hedge around the local
cemetery.8 In addition, its members erected a new railroad
station building and turned the land around it into a park,
"so that a [traveller's] first impression was a vision of
beauty".9 This seems to be one of the earliest instances of
a conscious attempt to beautify the station grounds, a trend
which really gains popularity after the 1880s.
Village improvement societies, which led the way in the
railroad beautif ication movement, were lauded by Donald G.
Mitchell and Parris T. Farwell, authors of Out-of-Town
Places and Village Improvement, respectively. These
associations were part of the "slow and painful process of
educating people to see the difference between the beautiful
and the ugly" and in turn encouraging them to "improve the
entire built landscape".10 Founded by a small group of
community members, these improvement societies frequently
took the form of afternoon clubs, women's groups, or garden
clubs, whose activities included planting trees, collecting
rubbish, teaching children horticulture, and creating public
parks and flowers gardens. Funds for the associations'
activities came from donations of money and supplies by
philanthropic townspeople and from membership dues. Adult
members were usually required to pay a fee of about a
dollar, or to donate the equivalent in labor, or to plant a
tree each year; a child's membership cost about twenty-five
cents or its equivalent in labor.11 The membership of these
improvement societies was primarily comprised of local
schoolchildren and women. As Parris Farwell wrote in 1913,
"one zealous woman is often proved to be more efficient than
a dozen men".12
Accordinq to the villaqe improvement associations, the
most important buildinq in towns alonq the railroad was the
station, which was the entrance to the town, the place where
the first and most memorable impressions were made.13
Travellers were "naturally inclined to qather their
impression. . .of a community ... from the condition of the
surroundinqs of its railroad center."14 Donald G. Mitchell
compared the importance of a town's first impression on a
visitor to that of a man's first meetinq with a woman.15
Thus, improvinq the landscape alonq the railroad's approach
to the town and around the stations became an urqent
community priority. Modern observers have referred to this
"desire to impress passinq stranqers" as a uniquely
nineteenth-century suburban reaction. 6 Mitchell noted that
travellers used to approach the town by way of the main
street where a well-kept villaqe qreen qreeted them; but,
with the advent of the railroad, travellers were "thrust
67
into the backsides of towns" where residents left "the pigs
and a mangy dog to sgueal and bark a reception to the world
of the railway".17 The railroad station, being the town's
new focal point, demanded attention and adornment, as did
the right-of-way. Like Mitchell, B.G. Northrop stressed the
importance of this new approach to the town, writing in
Rural Improvement in 1880 that "every little village
[wanted] its little outlying green to give [it] character
and dignity".18 The grounds immediately around the station
were the "most unkempt and noisome wilderness" and in their
transformation should be the starting point for aesthetic
teaching. 1
According to Parris Farwell, the benefits of improving
the station grounds were threefold: most obviously, it
transformed an ugly spot into one of beauty, it awakened
civic pride, and it subsequently encouraged other
beautif ication efforts throughout the town.20 The railroad
companies were sufficiently impressed by the efforts of
local improvement societies and convinced that the results
of this beautif ication would entice people to move to these
suburban towns, that they began to collaborate with them.21
Donald G. Mitchell, as early as 1867, encouraged the
unification of the railroad companies and local improvement
associations in their endeavors.
Donald G. Mitchell and Railroad Beautif ication
68
Donald Grant Mitchell, a pioneer in American railway
beautif ication, was born in 1822, attended Ellington School,
a boarding school in Connecticut, and then went on to Yale
College.22 Upon graduation in 1841, he retired for a few
years to a 300-400 acre farm in eastern Connecticut. In
1844, Mitchell left his farm for Liverpool, England, and
then traveled through England, Italy, and Germany for the
next two years; at one point he even served briefly as the
consul at Venice. After returning to the United States, he
published his first book in 1850, entitled Reveries of a
Bachelor, and then proceeded to get married just three years
later. A self -prof essed worshipper of beauty and English
landscape traditions, he designed the Connecticut Building
for the Centennial Exposition. Mr. Mitchell was also a
contemporary and friend of Washington Irving and James
Fenimore Cooper. Mitchell served first as the editor of
Harper's Magazine and then as the editor of Hearth and Home,
and in between these two jobs he wrote Rural Studies in
1867. 24 The aim of this publication was "to stimulate those
who live in the country, or who love the country, to a
fuller and wider range of thinking about the means of making
their homes enjoyable" and it was re-issued as Out-of-Town
Places in 1884. 2S By the time of his death in 1908, Donald
G. Mitchell had written numerous books that covered life on
a New England farm, his European travels, and the advantages
69
In his book Out-of-Town Places (originally Rural
Studies), Mr. Mitchell devoted three sections in Part III,
"Way Side Hints" to the landscaping of the railway,
including specifics on rights-of-way and station gardens.
He provided design guidelines, suggested plants for use in
these designs, and encouraged the town and the railroad
companies to cooperate. Mitchell felt that in order "to
make a [village] attractive, the approach to it must be
attractive" and he proposed to do this by linking the
beautified land of the right-of-way and railroad station
with that of the village green or commons and adjoining
privately-owned property.27 Mitchell was evidently aware
that the view from a speeding train was a kinetic experience
and quite different in quality from that available to a
local resident or passing pedestrian. In encouraging
homeowners to spell the names of their estates with flowers,
he stressed that, while a person walking by would easily be
able to read the name, a railroad passenger should see
nothing more than random flowers, except for the one
discreet moment when the name would be legible.28 Ideas
such as this one were priorities with Mitchell, because he
felt that "little regard [had been] paid to the observation
of that larger public which [was] hurtling by everyday in
the cars" of the railroad.29 Mitchell also hoped that by
planning new lines and new stations with their appearance in
mind, the future success of railroad beautif ication would be
70
guaranteed.
Although Mr. Mitchell appears to be the first American
to specifically address the landscaping needs of the
railroad, he was certainly not alone in promoting this
unique practise. Nearly fifteen years after Mitchell's
original treatise Rural Studies was published, railroad
beautif ication became an accepted and extremely popular
subject for landscape architects and planners. B.G.
Northrop published a book in 1880 that was similar in
content to Mitchell's Rural Studies, but was titled Rural
Improvement. In 1881, the editor of Scribner's Monthly
printed an article on the planting of railways, church-
yards, and cemeteries, all areas for improvement that were
frequently overlooked.30
By the first two decades of the twentieth century, more
and more people, experts and laymen alike, were praising
this movement towards beautif ication and offering their own
suggestions for achieving success in railroad landscaping.
Parris T. Farwell published his Village Improvement in 1913;
this book was akin to those published earlier by Donald G.
Mitchell and B.G. Northrop, but expanded on their contents
by providing some history of both village improvement
societies and railroad beautif ication. In addition to books
on improving America's countryside, numerous articles were
published in journals such as Landscape Architecture,
Architectural Record, and House and Garden.31 Most of
71
these articles dealt with specific examples of railroad
beautif ication: the pioneering Boston & Albany Railroad's
suburban stations designed by H.H. Richardson, architect,
and Frederick Law Olmsted, landscape architect;32 the
Delaware, Western & Lackawanna Railroad's extensive
landscaping along their suburban lines;33 and the Canadian
Pacific Railway who, in 1911, claimed to have "the largest
In his section on the landscape treatment of railways,
Donald G. Mitchell addressed the issue of beautifying land
along the railroad and began by claiming that those whose
residences adjoined the tracks had a responsibility to make
their properties attractive. While many people held the
railroad companies in contempt and overlooked their duty to
improve their lands for the benefit of travellers passing
by, Mitchell criticized this selfishness on the part of most
villagers. He felt that they had "no right to ignore the
onlook of the world" and that this behavior "in a republican
country [was] monstrous".35 Improving the backyards of
people along the railroad right-of-way would be the starting
point for beautifying the entire line. "The usual and
perhaps most attractive arrangement [was] that [of]
presenting to the traveller on the passing train an area of
well-kept rich green lawn fringed by a background of masses
of shrubs,
private lands adjoining the railroad would serve two
72
purposes: it would primarily serve as an advertisement for
the community, and would subsequently encourage the railroad
to follow suit by "harmoniz [ ing] its sweep of level line,
its barren slopes, its ugly scars, [and] its deep cuttings
with the order and grace of [the] fields and homes" of the
village.37
The landscaping suggestions that Mitchell proposed for
adjacent property owners were also applicable to rights-of-
way and to station grounds. Thickets of evergreen, while
giving character to an estate, provided a barrier against
the noise of the passing train, and English ivy was
recommended for covering flawed or uneven surfaces along the
tracks. Secluded properties called for a. lawn that "greeted
the eye of every intelligent traveller" and was separated
from the tracks by a hedge or paling.38 When a high
railroad embankment cut through an estate, a "well-tended
forest, flowing down in little promontories of shrubbery"
would prove a picturesque solution to the problem of
landscaping this area; the north-facing embankment was
perfectly suited for rhododendrons and various ivies, while
the other side was an ideal location for a small forcing
house.39 On the other hand, when an estate was bisected by
a below-grade right-of-way, the adjoining slopes called for
a grassy lawn punctuated by a hedge-row, coppice, or rustic
trellis with flowers. Rights-of-way that featured gradual
slopes or that were terraced lent themselves to parterres of
73
flowers and flowering or evergreen shrubs like kalmia
(mountain laurel), rhododendron, or hemlock.40 If the
railroad's line cut through a cliff, Mitchell suggested
bunches of crimson columbines "to nod their heads between
the eye of the traveller and the sky...."41
Mr. Mitchell also told property owners that they could
use flowers to spell out the names of their homesteads, so
long as they appeared to be "a careless ribbon of flowers
flecking the green" that was only readable for a brief
instant.4 The idea of spelling-out words with plants,
particularly brightly-colored flowers, was probably borrowed
from the European practise of identifying their country
stations in this manner. Although Mr. Mitchell
concentrated most of his efforts on railroad rights-of-way,
he did set the stage for those who would follow him. He
hoped to beautify the rights-of-way, which, when left
untouched were the ugliest scars of the railroad, and
eventually extend these efforts to the station grounds. In
his section on village greens, Mitchell made a plea for
reform of the station environs, saying that he would like to
see a green space with a "flame of flowers" and a "canopy of
elms" around every station.43 As early as 1867 Donald G.
Mitchell foresaw the success of these landscaped stations
with their colorful parterres of petunias, pansies, and four
o' clocks.44
When railroad beautif ication practises really began to
74
be implemented in earnest, in the last two decades of the
1800s, advocates turned to traditional nineteenth-century
conventions and institutions for guidance. As was mentioned
earlier, local improvement societies, usually women's clubs,
were the first ones to attempt to make the station grounds
more attractive. Groups like "The Wednesday Afternoon Club"
of Montclair, New Jersey, the "Women's Club" of Calhoun,
Georgia, and the "Ladies Improvement Club" of Porterville,
California were founded to transform the ugly areas of their
towns into places of beauty/5 Both the Georgia and
California associations acquired land from their local
railroad companies and then turned it into a park. The
"Women's Club" took "an unsightly spot where weeds ran riot
and frogs croaked contentment in the slimy ditch-water" and
created a beautiful park out of it, complete with a log
cabin and a clear stream that meandered through large trees
and flowering bushes, under a stone bridge and by some
flower beds.
Frequently the decoration of a railroad station was
tied in with the local school, when the grounds around it
were not sufficient for the horticultural endeavors of its
pupils/7 During the last decades of the nineteenth
century, nature study was being avidly encouraged in school
curricula in an attempt to counteract the effects of urban
industrialism, while appealing to "the aesthetic, the
imaginative, and the spiritual" in the American child/8
75
Allowing these students to cultivate their own gardens
provided them with first-hand exposure, however subtle, to
horticulture, biology, geology, chemistry, and economics,
and above all taught them necessary civic virtues, such as
pride, honesty, work ethics, and a love of nature.49 The
improvement societies promoted the efforts of the
schoolchildren, helping them to obtain the use of land owned
by the railroad and teaching each child to grow flowers and
vegetables in his or her own plot. This was usually a true
team effort, with the railroad company providing the land
and fencing it in, the town supplying free water, and the
improvement association donating seeds and plants.50 By the
first two decades of the 1900s, it was commonplace for the
railroad companies to join with local improvement societies
or community government to ensure that the stations would be
tastefully designed and surrounded by small gardens or
parks. Of course, once the railroad companies recognized
the economic value of beautifying their entire systems, they
became more involved in the process, establishing
greenhouses and hiring their own team of landscape
Design and Plant Materials
As railroad beautif ication became more popular with
civic improvement societies and the various railroad
companies who had been persuaded by them to improve rights-
76
of-way and create handsome station gardens, articles and
treatises addressing the practical issues of this unique
landscape form began to appear with increasing frequency.
Just as they had turned to nineteenth-century institutions
for the implementation of these village improvements, so
Americans also looked to nineteenth-century conventions for
design ideas and plant choice. Modern observers have
commented that suburban residents of the late 1800s
preferred landscaping with a simple, ^natural' beauty based
on the English picturesque, which provided a stark contrast
to the ugliness of the encroaching urban industrialism.53
These picturesque tendencies were introduced during the
eighteenth century by men like Capability. Brown and Humphrey
Repton who strove to replace the symmetrical monotony that
resulted from the straight lines and right angles of the
previous era with curving lines and irregular designs.54
In this country, the picturesque ideal was promulgated
and carried on by Andrew Jackson Downing who, in 1852, wrote
that "all forms of acknowledged beauty are composed of
curved lines,... the farther they are removed from those hard
and forcible lines which denote violence, the more beautiful
are they."55 The most desirable arrangement for a station
garden consisted of well-groomed grounds with an undulating
path that meandered its way through flower beds, shrubs, and
shade trees, incorporating nearby views. In an 1881 edition
of Scribner's Monthly, the editor praised an improved
77
station for its use of a rambling path to successfully
create the illusion of a large park-like space on limited
grounds. The walk was edged with sod and "wound through the
small domain, carried hither and thither so as to obtain the
best views of the river near by." 6 F. L. Olmsted's
"picturesgue and delightful" designs of the 1880s for the
Boston & Albany Railroad were noted for their lack of
ostentation and served as models for later improvement
efforts. The ample grounds of these suburban Boston
stations were "laid out with pleasant modulated surfaces of
turf, ornamented with diversified shrubbery" and bisected
with carefully studied walks and driveways.57
Another important aspect of station .landscaping, aside
from winding paths, picturesgue views and natural
arrangements, was its pragmatic side in which plantings
along the railroad served a utilitarian purpose as well as
an aesthetic one. Plants were not always purely ornamental
but rather freguently served the practical needs of the
railroad. Most often, trees and hedges were used to hide
the ugly structures associated with the workings of the
railroad and to give adjacent property owners some privacy.
Shrubs provided a "screen to close from view unsightly
features along the right-of-way beyond management's
control.58 Plants were also used to cover the "sears left
where the railroad ploughed through a picturesgue
landscape."59 Many of the railroad companies saw the
78
advantages that careful landscape planning could bring and
so they planted with an eye towards prevention and future
maintenance. Hedges along railroad cuts served to protect
these below grade tracks from being buried under snow during
the winter, while planting large trees along rights-of-way
and around stations could eventually provide cheap timber
for posts and cross-ties.6
While the plants recommended for use in railway
landscaping varied according to climate and personal
preference, nearly all of them were as hardy as they were
beautiful. The one characteristic that these flowers,
shrubs, trees, and ground cover all shared was that they all
required relatively minimal maintenance. • "Almost everything
was simple and permanent in character", needing very little
care or attention and consisting most often of local
varieties.61 "A railway station [was] a place for all the
year round, and its surroundings must be treated
accordingly, and the means nearest at hand, the hardy native
trees, shrubs and vines, may be considered both
aesthetically and practically the best material to be
used."62 Tree selection leaned towards the picturesque,
such as weeping varieties and conifers, espoused by Repton
and Downing, and ground covering plants tended to be
attractive while simultaneously preventing soil erosion.
Perennials that provided vibrant color at various times of
the year were the most common choice for flower beds, while
79
low-maintenance flowering shrubs were ideal for both beds
and walkways. The Victorian taste for variegated leaves and
masses of colorful flowers was perfectly suited to the
aesthetic goals of railroad beautif ication.63 Another
characteristic of nineteenth-century landscaping was the
popular use of oriental plant materials, and these Chinese
and Japanese trees and shrubs were sometimes found in
railroad station gardens. Hardy local trees, shrubs and
herbaceous plants were extremely popular, not only because
they were cheaper than exotic imports but, because they
remained attractive throughout most of the year.
The trees used most often around stations and their
grounds were small species that provided some shade for
passengers awaiting trains. Dwarf trees and picturesque
weeping varieties were also popular with leading authorities
on landscape improvement, like Samuel Parson, editor of
Scribner's Monthly.63 By contrast, Frederick Law Olmsted,
in designing station grounds around Boston, preferred larger
trees such as the American beech and the white pine or
willow.66 Linden, oak, and maple trees were also
recommended for shade while dwarf evergreens, such as
conical spruce, glaucous juniper, and Nordman's fir were
suggested for year-round greenery.6 Other trees mentioned
for use in railway beautif ication included weeping beeches
and white-barked birches, Lombardy and Carolina poplars,
golden oaks, ash, and elm, as well as the smaller purple
80
beech, stuartia, and magnolia.
Perhaps the simplest method of beautifying station
grounds was through the use of ground cover and vines. This
type of plant material was perennial, rugged, and easy to
care for, as it grew without any assistance. Herbaceous
plants such as moneywort, periwinkle, and sedum (Stonecrop) ,
which flower freely during the summer months, and Virginia
creeper were cited as the best for ground cover.69 Vines
were also used on station buildings and on fences around the
grounds to produce a picturesgue effect and serve as an
attractive screen. English and Japanese ivy, fragrant
honeysuckle, bridal wreath, and climbing roses were the
plants of choice for these purposes.70
Hardy, flowering shrubs were the most popular plant
material used in railway beautif ication, both on station
grounds and along some rights-of-way. Although not guite as
easy to maintain as the no-care ground covers, since
shrubbery reguires some pruning and shaping, this type of
planting was unegualed for its combination of utility and
beauty. Donald G. Mitchell suggested kalmia (mountain
laurel) , hemlocks, and Lawson cypress, while Parris T.
Farwell advocated the use of hydrangeas; both Mitchell and
Samuel Parson favored rhododendrons.71 Other blooming
shrubs seen in improved station grounds included azaleas,
caragana, deutzia, elders, Japanese tamarix, lilacs, mock
81
While planting elaborately-shaped beds and parterres of
flowers was sometimes criticized because it was expensive
and, in the case of annuals, temporary, it remained a
favorite with railroad passengers.75 A number of railroad
companies spent large sums of money planting annuals and
cultivating plants in greenhouses.74 Although "the beds
[have] to be renewed each year, and in a northern climate
last but a few months at best," flower beds were still the
most logical way of providing a dazzling rainbow of color at
each station.75 Donald G. Mitchell's favorite flowers
included four-o-clocks, pansies, petunias, and columbines,
while Parris T. Farwell preferred phlox.76 Some of the most
successful flowers used in railroad landscaping were
pansies, nasturtiums, marigolds, zinnias, poppies, alyssum
(madwort), and geraniums.77 Asters, cannas (Indian shot),
geraniums, phlox, and lobelia were suggested as good bedding
material.78 The most common perennials included columbines,
delphinium (larkspur), gaillardia (blanket flower),
hollyhocks, iris, lychnis (Maltese cross), peonies, pinks,
79
and sweet William.
Another simple yet frequently overlooked way to improve
a station's environs was by planting a seeded or sodded
lawn. "The usual and most attractive [landscaping]
arrangement [was] that presenting to the traveler on the
passing train an area of well-kept rich green lawn fringed
by a background of masses of shrubs with a varying
82
skyline."80 Throughout Out-of-Town Places, Mitchell
recommends a well-kept green around the station, and nearly
sixty years later an article in House and Garden notes the
attractiveness of this type of landscaping.81 Sodding was
also useful in beautifying rights-of-way as it was both
pleasing to the eye of the traveller and helped to prevent
erosion.82
The key to station ground design and choice of plant
materials was simplicity and durability. For this reason,
it is easy to understand why simple design elements like
lawns and rock gardens were implemented, and why hardy
shrubs and evergreens were used. Railroad companies
constantly sought inexpensive yet attractive ways to improve
their station grounds, a technigue that portrayed them "as
catering to the [commuter] and as being a friendly, beauty-
83
NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR
1. Donald Grant Mitchell, Out of Town Places: With
Hints for their Improvement (1867; reprint, New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884), p. 186.
2. Edward W. Bok, "Where American Life Really Exists,"
Ladies Home Journal (October 1895), p. 14.
3 . In Robert Fishman Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and
Fall of Suburbia (New York: Basic Books, In., 1987), p. 127.
4. Bok, p. 14.
5. Fishman, p. 134.
6. Mitchell, p. 142.
7. Frederick Lewis Allen, House Beautiful 37 (January
1915) , in John R. Stilgoe Borderland: Origins of the
American Suburb 1820-1939 (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1988) , p. 217.
8. Parr is Thaxter Farwell, Village Improvement (New
York: Sturgis & Walton Company, 1913), pp. 13-16.
9. Farwell, p. 16.
10. Allen, House Beautiful, in Stilgoe Borderland,
p. 217.
11. Farwell, pp. 17, 230.
12. Farwell, p. 25.
13. Farwell, p. 180.
Also: David P. Handlin, The American Home: Architecture and
Society, 1815-1915 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company,
1979) , p. 101.
14. "The Designing of Small Railway Stations," American
Architect 100, no. 1867(October 4, 1911), p. 130.
15. Mitchell, p. 145.
16. Ann Leighton, American Gardens of the Nineteenth
Century: For Comfort and Affluence (Amherst, MA: The
University of Massachusetts Press, 1987), p. 242.
17. Mitchell, pp. 142-143.
18. In Handlin, p. 101.
84
19. Mitchell, p. 147.
20. Farwell, p. 184.
21. American Architect, p. 130; Handlin, p. 101.
22. Waldo H. Dunn, The Life of Donald G. Mitchell. Ik
Marvel (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922), p. 415.
23. Mitchell, p. 1.
24. Dunn, pp. 3, 6, 416.
25. Mitchell, p. 1.
26. Dunn, p. 416.
27. Mitchell, p. 152.
28. Mitchell, p. 156.
29. Mitchell, p. 142.
30. Samuel Parson, "Railway, Church-Yard, and Cemetery
Lawn-Planting," Scribner's Monthly 22 (July 1881), pp. 415-
419.
31. E. L. Chicanot, "Beautifying a Railroad System,"
Landscape Architecture 15(1911), pp. 185-194.
Also: American Architect.
Also: John Allen Murphy "Station Grounds for Town
Betterment," House and Garden 50 (August 1926): 88-89+.
3 2 . American Architect.
33. J. A. Murphy, House and Garden.
34. Chicanot, Landscape Architecture.
35. Mitchell, p. 157.
36. John Droege, Passenger Terminals & Trains (New
York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1916; reprint, Milwaukee,
WI: Kalmbach Publishing Co., 1969), p. 267.
37. Mitchell, pp. 153, 159.
38. Mitchell, pp. 154-156.
39. Mitchell, pp. 158-159.
40. Mitchell, p. 155.
85
41. Mitchell, p. 155.
42. Mitchell, p. 156.
43. Mitchell, pp. 146, 150.
44. Mitchell, p. 151.
45. Stilgoe, Borderland, p. 215; Farwell, pp. 27, 33.
46. Farwell, p. 28.
47. Farwell, p. 176.
48. Peter J. Schmitt, Back to Nature: The Arcadian Myth
in Urban America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969) ,
p. 84.
49. Schmitt, pp. 78, 92.
50. Farwell, pp. 183, 258, 263; Handlin, p. 100.
51. Stilgoe, Borderland, p. 208.
52. Chicanot, p. 186.
53. Stilgoe, Borderland, p. 220.
54. Fishman, p. 48.
55. Andrew Jackson Downing, Rural Essays (New York:
George P. Putnam and Company, 1853), p. 107.
56. Parson, p. 415.
57. J. H. Phillips, "The Evolution of the Suburban
Station," Architectural Record 36 (August 1914), p. 214.
58. Droege, p. 267.
59. Phillips, p. 125.
60. Droege, p. 267.
61. Parson, p. 415.
62. Farwell, p. 182.
63. Leighton, p. 241.
64. Droege, pp. 266-267.
86
65 . Parson, p. 415.
66. John R. Stilgoe, Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads
and the American Scene (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1983) , p. 234.
67. Parson, p. 415; J. A. Murphy, p. 122.
68. Parson, p. 415.
Also: Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., "Village Improvements,"
Atlantic Monthly 95(June 1905), p. 802.
Also: Chicanot, p. 194.
69. Droege, p. 267; Parson, p. 415.
70. Mitchell, p. 156; Stilgoe, Metropolitan Corridor,
p. 234; Chicanot, p. 194; J. A. Murphy, p. 122.
71. Mitchell, p. 155; Farwell, p. 183; Parson, p. 415
72. Chicanot, p. 194.
73. Olmsted, Jr., pp. 802-803.
74. Murphy, p. 89; Chicanot, p. 192..
75. Droege, p. 266.
76. Mitchell, p. 151; Farwell, p. 183.
77. Chicanot, p. 192; Parson, p. 214.
78. Chicanot, p. 192; Farwell, p. 183.
79. Chicanot, p. 194; Mitchell, p. 151.
80. Droege, p. 267.
81. Mitchell, pp. 148, 151, 152; J. A. Murphy, p. 122
82. "Beautifying the Roadbed by Sodding," Scientific
American 941(December 1, 1906), p. 406.
83. J. A. Murphy, p. 122.
87
THE D. L. & W. AND ITS NEW JERSEY SUBURBS
In a letter to the American Civic Association, the
Passenger Manager of the Chicago & Northwest Railroad wrote
that,
[T]he importance of a policy by means of which the
traveller, on alighting from the train, finds
himself in the midst of a pleasing landscape of
flowers, shrubbery and well-kept lawns, is one the
full value of which can hardly be computed. The
value is felt not only by the traveller, but in
each community so fortunate as to be thus favoured
the influence of an example of this kind extends
into the civic life of the community very rapidly.
The most important features of this systematic
campaign for the beautifying of what is one of the
most generally used and widely noticed places in
the community - the railroad station - is the
educational effect it has upon each community,
whereby the universal beautifying of houses and
streets has been rapidly brought nearer a fruition
that is ideal.1
The D. L. & W. Railroad was one of the first companies
in the United States to undertake a landscape program
similar to that recommended by the aforementioned Passenger
Manager.2 That the D. L. & W. , which began sometime prior
to 1900 to beautify the grounds of its suburban New Jersey
stations, had long been committed to building attractive
passenger stations in landscaped settings is supported by
historic photographs and promotional booklets issued by the
railroad.3 Upon his retirement on June 21, 1934, Addison H.
Day, a lifelong D. L. & W. passenger, wrote that one of the
things that had impressed him most in his sixty-five years
of commuting from Chatham was "...the beautifying of [the]
Lackawanna passenger stations in suburban New Jersey; [t]he
stations [were] architectural gems of convenience and
comfort; [t]he shrubbery alone must have cost thousands of
dollars, but it [was] money well spent."4 A 1951 article in
Railway Age celebrated the D. L. & W.'s centennial and
lauded the railroad for its attractive suburban stations
that "harmonize [d] with their picturesque settings," which
normally consisted of "well-kept lawns and shrubbery."5
As discussed in the previous section, landscaping
station grounds was expensive and required a great deal of
effort on the part of the railroads. Since this was the
case, why did companies like the D. L. & W. expend so much
money and energy to improve their suburban stations? This
question has a multi-faceted answer, but the bottom line is
that this practise encouraged business and ultimately
resulted in profits for the railroad companies; companies
only instituted beautif ication when material benefits were
guaranteed.6 Beautifying the lands along the railroad
fostered good will in the adjacent communities and resulted
in a more pleasant working environment for employees, which
in turn would increase productivity. This practise of
beautifying railroad land also appealed to tourists who were
passing through these suburbs enroute to vacations in the
mountains or lake regions of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Donald G. Mitchell, in his book Out-of-Town Places, referred
to these "charming suburban retreats" along the railroad
lines in New Jersey, but criticized them for the filth and
89
debris that travellers passing through were forced to view.7
Because, as Mitchell pointed out in 1867, towns face the
outside world at their stations, the conditions of its
grounds serve as an advertisement for the rest of the
village.8 Before the turn of the century, the D. L. & W.
began to improve its station grounds and some of its early
advertising efforts promoted these suburban towns as
worthwhile excursion destinations and vacation spots. One
such example was the booklet, "Summering on the Lackawanna,"
issued in 1897. 9 Besides being touted as healthful resorts,
communities like Morristown, Madison, Chatham, Montclair,
and Orange were also advertised as historic landmarks.1
In subsequent advertising efforts of the first decades
of the 19 00s, the D. L. & W marketed these towns as
permanent alternatives to living in New York City.11 (see
Illustration 19) Catchy phrases and titles such as "You'll
Get More Out of Life... in the Lackawanna Suburbs,"
substantiate this fact. By contrasting the negative aspects
of "life by the inch" in the metropolis with a healthier
"life by the acre" in the suburbs, the railroad hoped to
lure prospective homeowners to the communities which it
served. (see Illustration 20) It was widely thought that
planting attractive station grounds would catch the eye of a
businessman or his wife and encourage them to move to that
particular town. By drawing more people from the city into
the suburbs, the volume of commuter traffic would be
90
increased and thus so would revenue. Beautifying the
station also kept the commuters satisfied with the service
provided by the railroad. The contented commuter, in turn,
served as a walking advertisement for the railroad.
Another reason the companies actively participated in
beautifying the grounds around their suburban stations was
to counteract the negative image that the railroad
invariably projected. While the railroad was certainly a
vehicle of progress, it was also seen as a vehicle of
destruction that was transforming the face of America's
countryside. Thoreau, a critic of the railroad, claimed
that he "would rather ride on earth in an ox-cart..., than
go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train...."
In 1867, Donald G. Mitchell warned the public that they
could not ignore the railroad for "it [was] the common
carrier; it [was] the bond of the town with civilization; it
la [id] its iron fingers upon the lap of a hundred quiet
valleys, and [stole] away their tranquility like a
ravisher."13 This view of the railroad, held by many of the
country's suburban dwellers, needed desperately to be
altered. Perhaps it was the desire to counteract this
negative image that led the D. L. & W. , in its early years,
to commission the "Lackawanna Valley" from George Inness.
Companies like the D. L. & W. contributed to civic
improvement efforts by attractively landscaping their
station grounds and, as a result, projected a friendlier,
91
more positive image to the town. When people saw that the
D. L. & W really cared about the effect the railroad had on
the village and its environs, they would feel no guilt about
encouraging progress by supporting the iron horse.
As mentioned earlier, the D. L. & W was a pioneer in
railroad beautif ication, beginning their efforts in the late
nineteenth century. These early improvements ranged in size
from narrow strips in front of the station to veritable
parks, which were usually extensions of the town's public
green. The landscaping program undertaken by the D. L. & W
was an extensive one that really expanded during the first
two decades of the 1900s. Progress was slow at first, as it
usually took a number of years for the plantings to grow and
fully express the intent of the design. 4 It is not known
whether the D. L. & W hired professional landscape
architects to design their stations. However, this was
probably the case since, according to the article by John A.
Murphy, the railroad did maintain a landscape department.15
The railroad had its own crew of gardeners on the company
payroll as well as its own hothouses for propagating
flowers.16 Each year the company's gardeners planted
thousands of shrubs, vines, perennials, and annuals; they
also cultivated 250,000 to 300,000 hothouse plants per
year.17
Among the New Jersey stations upon which the D. L. & W
expended considerable efforts to beautify were those along
92
the original line of the Morris & Essex Railroad: Orange,
Mountain Station, Chatham, Madison, and Morristown. (see
Illustration 21) The Morris & Essex Railroad was surveyed
in 1835 and acquired by the D. L. & W. parent company in
1868. (see Chapter Two and Illustration 1) Other elaborately
landscaped stations included Montclair, on the Newark branch
line, and Passaic and Boonton, stops along the north-west
line from Hoboken. 18(see Illustrations 22-26) Those suburbs
and their stations which will be discussed here are
Montclair, Chatham, Madison, and Morristown, these last
three being adjacent communities. Orange Station, the only
one for which written documentation exists, will be used to
illustrate the kinds of plant materials used in an actual
railroad station garden.
Montclair, a suburban town at the end of a line that
branched out from Newark, was often called the "Athens of
New Jersey".19 In 1897, the D. L. & W. published "Summering
on the Lackawanna," in which it stated that Montclair was
"unsurpassed for beauty of situation and healthfulness in
the vicinity of the metropolis."20 It is interesting to
note that George Inness, who had painted a suite of pictures
for the Lackawanna Railroad at mid-century, settled in
Montclair in 1878. With his studio in New York City, he
must have commuted back and forth on the D. L. & W. , until
his death in 1894. 21
Chatham, a smaller community than Montclair, was
93
located along the Main Line of the D. L. & W. in New Jersey.
The small grounds around its still-existing stone station,
which was built in 1916, were simply landscaped, as a large
parking lot faced it. Here, the company paid close
attention to elements within this lot, such as the islands
between rows of cars and the one that divided the entrance
and exit lanes. (see Illustration 27) Next door to Chatham
was the home of Drew University, the town of Madison, which
was established in 1685. In 1897, the D. L. & W. claimed
that this suburb had been "known as a health resort for a
long time."22 Some years later, in "Landmarks of Historic
Interest Along the Lackawanna Railroad," the company
recommended to its readers a visit to the University's
historic Mead Hall, which was built around 1833-1836 by
William Gibbons of Savannah, Georgia.23
Morristown, the Morris County seat and the neighbor of
Madison, was a town of considerable historic significance
for the part it played in the American Revolution. As the
D. L. & W. pointed out, Morristown was host to hundreds of
soldiers during the war and even served as a home to General
and Mrs. Washington, who resided in the Ford Mansion from
1779-1780. 24 The railroad company also tried to lure
nineteenth century travellers to this pleasant community by
advertising its more contemporary merits, claiming that the
"entire region [was] a sanitarium, and no healthier spot can
be found."25
94
Like Morristown, the suburb of Orange, located just
outside of Newark near the base of the Watchung Mountains,
was a landmark of the Revolution. In its early twentieth-
century publication on historic landmarks, the D. L. & W.
pointed out that the old military common still existed in
this town and that it was worth a visit. 6 By stating that
"in all New Jersey no more delightful [community] can be
found," the railroad also hoped to draw people to Orange for
summer vacations and weekend excursions.
By the 1920s and 1930s, the majority of the D. L. &
W.'s passenger traffic consisted of commuters rather than
travellers on excursions or en route to vacations. The D.
L. & W.'s president at the time, John M. -Davis, cited the
New Jersey landscape as the railroad's main selling point:
"As a natural conseguence of the rare charm and healthiness
of the landscape of the suburban region adjacent to the
Lackawanna and its proximity to both Newark and New York
City, the commuter traffic handled by this railroad is one
of the heaviest in the New Jersey - New York metropolitan
area."28 With the 1935 publication of "You'll Get More Out
of Life... in the Lackawanna Suburbs," the D. L. & W. began
an impressive effort to entice New Yorkers to move to the
suburbs, where "people [were] really living."2 The
railroad promised "clear clean fresh air and lots of
sunshine. . .broad lawns and gay flower gardens. . .winding
shaded streets and spacious parks" in the affordable
95
Lackawanna suburbs, where people had "the opportunity to
carry on the intelligent and balanced sort of life which is
the birthright of every American family."30
This booklet, which was re-issued in subsequent years,
provided a written and pictorial description of the dozens
of small communities along its different routes: the Main,
Montclair, and Boonton Lines. Included in the text were
statistics for each town: altitude, population, government,
schools, churches, clubs, parks, theaters, and hospitals.
Descriptions of the larger suburbs were enhanced by
photographs of local scenes and places of interest. (see
Illustration 27) In the middle of this booklet was a two-
page spread entitled, "Lackawanna at Your. Service," that
featured photographs of a few of the D. L. & W.'s
elaborately landscaped passenger stations, including
Montclair, Madison, and Morristown.
Montclair was touted as the second wealthiest
municipality in the United States and "one of the most
beautiful and charming suburbs in the country."31 The
station, built in 1913, was a large brick and stone building
with a wide entrance drive and ample space for parking; the
grounds immediately around it were heavily landscaped with
medium-sized shrubs. (see Illustrations 22, 23)
Because the towns of Summit, Chatham, and Madison were
small and close together, they were all presented on the
same page. Both the Chatham and Madison stations were
96
constructed in 1916. Chatham, whose station was not
illustrated in this booklet, was merely described as a small
community that was colonial in character yet educationally
progressive.32 Madison, once again cited as the home of
Drew University, was said to be "one of the pleasantest and
most x livable' suburbs along the Lackawanna." Its large
station was constructed of stone and was shown covered with
climbing vines. The grounds themselves were landscaped with
groups of shrubs clustered around lamp-posts and
stairways. (see Illustration 29)
Morristown, while still listed as Washington's
headquarters during the Revolution, was also described as
the home of the Morris County Courthouse.34 The low, stone
passenger station in this town featured extensive
landscaping in front of it; two gardens that were mirror-
images of each other flanked either side of a central path
that led to the building's main entrance. (see Illustrations
30-33)
According to the D. L. & W. , Orange, which had been
flourishing before the Revolution, became a popular health
resort for wealthy New Yorkers, because of its climate and
natural beauty. It was also noted for its extensive park
system that provided ample recreation space for residents
and visitors alike.35 Although Orange Station, which,
having been constructed in 1920, was one of the most up-to-
date buildings, was not illustrated in any of the D. L. &
97
W.'s booklets or other publications, it will be discussed
here. (see Illustrations 34-35) It is most fortunate that
materials were found which establish Orange Station as,
apparently, being the only site whose plant materials were
documented and published. This listing of four beds on the
station's grounds, which was compiled by John Allen Murphy
for his 1926 article, "Station Grounds for Town Betterment,"
includes a plot by plot inventory of the varieties and
numbers of plants used. Unfortunately, it does not document
or describe the design or layout of these different gardens;
however, suggestions for contemporary flower beds and
landscape design in station gardens do exist. The listings
of plants actually used are of great interest and furnish a
variety of clues and information. (see Appendix B)
The four individual plots at Orange Station were
presumably fairly large and encompassed a wide range of
plant materials: each bed was comprised of thirty to forty
different species! The majority of the trees, shrubs,
ground covers, vines, and flowers used on these grounds were
the same as those that had been recommended by Downing and
other leading authorities of the mid to late 1800s. The
weeping trees and shrubs, the variegated leaves, and the
vibrant color indicative of nineteenth century landscaping
were all represented in this garden. There were weeping
cutleaf birches, and weeping forsythia in Plot No. 4,
variegated hibiscus in the first bed, variegated weigelia in
98
Plot Nos. 2 and 3, as well as a wide assortment of flowers.
In addition, a number of plants that had been cited as ideal
for use in railway beautif ication were also included.
The four landscaped plots were predominantly comprised
of trees and shrubs, with comparatively few flowers and
ground cover or vines. Aside from the traditionally
recommended shade trees, like maple, linden, and oak, the
garden also contained evergreens and a significant number of
flowering and fruit-bearing trees. According to the
available literature, no flowering or fruit trees, with the
exception of the magnolia, seem to have been officially
suggested for use in railroad beautif ication. The gardeners
at Orange, however, certainly had a preference for these
smaller, more colorful and fragrant trees. A number of
different kinds of magnolia, dogwood, hawthorn, arrowood,
and fringe trees were scattered throughout the four beds, as
were plum and quince trees. Colorado spruce and Eastern red
cedar were used for year-round greenery. In addition, sixty
weeping cutleaf birch trees, a popular nineteenth-century
variety, appeared in Plot No. 4. White cedar and poplars
seemed to be the most frequently used trees on these
grounds.
Shrubbery, both flowering and ordinary types, was
obviously the main ingredient in the gardens at Orange
Station. In Plot No. 1 alone, there were 1600 barberry
bushes planted, while Plot No. 2 boasted over 430 privet
99
plants! Other popular shrubs included spiraea, which was
found in every bed except for the first one, winged
euonymus, hydrangea, forsythia, butterfly bushes, and a
number of different weigela and rhododendrons.
Although ground cover and vines were strongly
recommended for controlling soil erosion on both station
grounds and rights-of-way, very little of it was planted at
this station. Plot No. 1 had no ground cover material, Plot
No. 2 had just forty plants from the ivy family, Plot No. 3
contained fifty of the highly suggested pachysandra, and the
last plot, No. 4, listed thirty hyper icum and twenty
honeysuckle.
Another relatively standard element in station gardens
were flowers. However, this garden contained just two kinds
of flowers, irises and roses. There were fifty assorted
irises in the first plot and roses in plot Nos. 2 and 3,
while the fourth plot had no flowers whatsoever.
The first bed at Orange Station contained the least
variety of plants. With its 1600 barberry, it had little
room for other materials, which might explain the lack of
any ground cover in the section. There were thirty-two
Junipers and twenty-six white cedars, in addition to a few
maples, American redbuds, plums, and dogwoods. Irises,
which were only found in this plot, deutzia, and variegated
hibiscus added some color to this garden. Many of the
plants used here were oriental varieties, popular during the
100
Victorian era. Japanese barberry, both Hinoki and Sawara
false cypresses, Japanese and Chinese junipers, and iris
were incorporated into this particular plot.
Plot No. 2 exhibited the most variety in its plant
materials, containing a number of trees, shrubs, flowers,
and ivy. Euonymus, Japanese quince, and wayfaring trees
comprised a majority of the plantings while other trees
present in fewer numbers included maples, dogwoods,
magnolias, linden, pin oak, and Canadian hemlock. Like the
former plot, the largest amount of a single species belonged
to a shrub, in this case the California privet, of which
there were 430. Hydrangea, barberry (this time just one
hundred!), weigela, rhododendron, spiraea, chokeberry,
deutzia, hibiscus, and tamarix were also present. As for
flowers, there were just forty roses. Again, the Victorian
penchant for orientals was evident here, in the Japanese
barberries, Oriental plane trees, and Japanese flowering
quince.
The next bed, Plot No. 3, was also representative of
each type of plant material. Pachysandra was used as ground
cover and 130 "Mrs. Cutbush" roses comprised the only
flowers planted in this bed. These roses were a rambling
variety first exhibited at the 1905 Royal Horticultural Show
in England, This rose was named for Mrs. W. H. Cutbush of
Highgate.36 Again, shrubbery comprised a majority of the
plantings: rhododendrons, spiraea, lilacs, barberry,
101
butterfly bushes, summersweet, and mahonia aquifolia to name
a few. Like the first plot, this one also had quite a few
white cedar trees. However, a number of poplars, Eastern
red cedars, and some fringetrees were also evident.
The last plot, No. 4, contained large numbers of shrubs
and trees as well as ground cover, vines and some flowers.
Spiraea was once again a popular shrub, followed in number
by hydrangea, deutzia, and weigelia; this bed also listed
arrowood, euonymus, and mock orange. As for trees, the
cutleaf birch dominated but there were also more than fifty
spruce trees. Hypericum and honeysuckle represented ground
cover and climbing vines, respectively.
As mentioned previously, a number of plants
specifically recommended for use in railway landscaping were
evident in these four beds. Weeping birches, magnolias,
linden, oak, and maple trees, as well as ivy, honeysuckle,
pachysandra, and irises had all been suggested for
beautifying station grounds and were incorporated in the
gardens at Orange Station. Very nearly all of the
recommended shrubs were present, including hydrangea,
forsythia, weigela, spiraea, tamarix, rhododendron, lilac,
honeysuckle, and mock orange.
While flowering and fruit trees were popular for many
types of landscaping during the nineteenth century, they do
not appear to have been suggested for use in station
gardens. (see previous Chapter Four) At Orange Station,
102
however, the railroad planted a significant number of them
in each plot. Perhaps this was their way of achieving the
color and fragrance of flowering shrubs without the constant
care (i.e. periodic pruning and shaping) that was reguired
to maintain them. It is also interesting to note that
relatively few annual and perennial flowers were used in the
4 beds; this seems to have been the case in the landscaping
of other D. L. & W. stations, like Montclair, Chatham,
Madison, and Morristown as well. The company lessened the
amount of care normally reguired by reducing the number of
high maintenance plants, like flowers; at the same time,
they added small flowering shrubs and trees to replace the
prescribed variety of seasonal color that; would be lost by
removing the flowers. Rather than being criticized for
their apparent lack of the usual railroad station flowers,
the D. L. & W. should be commended for their unigue
expression of the standard beautif ication goals.
103
NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE
1. Parris Thaxter Farwell, Village Improvement (New
York: Sturgis & Walton Company, 1913), pp. 184-185.
2. John Allen Murphy, "Station Grounds for Town
Betterment," House and Garden 50 (August 1926), p. 89.
3. J. A. Murphy, p. 89.
4. Thomas Townsend Taber, The Delaware, Lackawanna &
Western Railroad**The Road of Anthracite**in the Nineteenth
Century 1828-1899: The History of the Formation and
Development of the D. L. & W. 'Family' of Railroads, and
Their Locomotives, which, in the Following Century Became
One of Our Most Admired and Beloved Railroads (Muncy, PA:
Thomas T. Taber III, 1977), p. 383.
5. "Engineering Policies on the Lackawanna," Railway
Age (October 15, 1951), p. 87.
6. E.L. Chicanot, "Beautifying a Railroad System,"
Landscape Architecture 15(1911), p. 190.
7. Donald Grant Mitchell, Out of Town Places: With
Hints for the Improvement (1867; reprint, New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1884), p. 146.
8. Mitchell, p. 144.
9. Summering on the Lackawanna D. L. & W. Railroad
Publication (n.p., 1897).
10. Landmarks of Interest Along the Lackawanna Railroad
D. L. & W. Railroad Publication (n.p., n.d.).
11 . You'll Get More out of Life... in the Lackawanna
Suburbs D. L. & W. Railroad Publication (n.p., 1935).
12. Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1910; reprint, New
York: E.P. Dutton & Co. , Inc., 1962), p. 31.
13. Mitchell, p. 144.
14. J. A. Murphy, p. 89.
15. J. A. Murphy, p. 122.
16. The stationmaster at Orange Station gave me this
information over the telephone in January 1990.
104
17. J. A. Murphy, p. 89.
18. The D. L. & W. Railroad Photographic Collection,
Box 78. PHMC Railroad Museum, Strasburg.
19. Summering on the Lackawanna . n. p.
20. Summering on the Lackawanna, p. 23.
21. American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River
School (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), p. 232.
22. Summering on the Lackawanna, n.p.
23. Landmarks of Interest, p. 9.
24. Landmarks of Interest, n.p.
25. Summering on the Lackawanna, n.p.
26. Landmarks of Interest, n.p.
27. Summering on the Lackawanna, n.p.
28. Letter from J.M. Davis. The D. L. & W. Railroad
Curatorial Collection, Box 32. PHMC Railroad Museum,
Strasburg.
29. You'll Get More out of Life, p. 1.
30. You'll Get More out of Life, p. 1.
31. You'll Get More out of Life, p. 11.
32. You'll Get More out of Life, p. 15.
33. You'll Get More out of Life, p. 15.
34. You'll Get More out of Life, p. 17.
35. You'll Get More out of Life, p. 5.
36. Hazel Le Rougetel, The Heritage of Roses (Owings
Mills, MD: Stemmer House Publishers, Inc., 1981), p. 101.
105
CONCLUSIONS
The railroad, which had been the vehicle of choice for
the American public throughout the latter half of the
nineteenth century, maintained its popularity up until the
first two decades of the 1900s, despite the introduction of
the horseless carriage, or automobile, in 1884. 1 Although
the automobile was being manufactured in this country by the
1890s, the railroad continued to be the cheapest, most
reliable mode of transportation well into the early
twentieth century.2 Around this time, however, the
automobile revolution began in earnest, resulting in the
mass production of more affordable vehicles; soon, the
automobile became accessible to virtually the entire general
public.3
With the proliferation of the automobile in American
society, the railroad companies began to notice a decline in
patronage and thus in revenue. While the railroads retained
the majority of their commuter traffic during the early
1900s, excursion and vacation travel slackened to a large
degree. The automobile companies urged the public to
purchase this new vehicle for long-distance travel because
it was convenient and provided more freedom than other
available modes of transportation.4 As more and more
Americans became the proud owners of an automobile, the
family vacation acguired new meaning: both the destination
and route taken to get there were entirely up to the
106
individual, rather than prescribed by a tourist agency or
railroad company.
As the automobile gained widespread popularity, the
railroads could no longer sell the scenic beauty of the
countryside along their routes. The reasons for this change
are two-fold: Americans were now able , with the help of
the automobile, to travel to many more parts of the country
at their own convenience and were no longer dependent
exclusively upon the railroad; and secondly, the automobile
was transforming the remaining pristine landscape of the
country with the construction of new roads and highways.
The natural beauty of the countryside in areas such as the
Pocono Mountains and the Delaware Water Gap were rapidly
being encroached upon by this new revolution in
transportation. As an article in a 1915 issue of House
Beautiful pointed out, "man has made a travesty of his
appreciation of the beauty of hill and glade and field, by
laying a tar road across them."5 When they realized that
the untouched landscape and the prospect of travelling
through it were not successful drawing points anymore,
railroad companies like the D. L. & W. embarked on a new
approach to attract customers.
This change can be seen in the D. L. & W.'s shift from
the excursion and vacation advertising of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to an aggressive
campaign aimed at suburban commuters during the first few
107
decades of the 1900s. Publications such as "You'll Get More
Out of Life... in the Lackawanna Suburbs" and extensive
beautif ication of their newly constructed passenger stations
are indicative of the D. L. & W.'s attempt to retain and
expand their commuter traffic.
Unfortunately, these efforts were short-lived and by
the end of the second World War, the railroad could hardly
compete with the ever-present automobile.6 Commuter
patronage of the railroad had reached its peak and, while it
remained somewhat constant, attempts to increase it were no
longer worthwhile. Indeed, many railroad lines and stations
were being abandoned at this time. Even the station
gardens, which were planted expressly for* these suburban
commuters, had became obsolete, replaced instead with larger
parking lots for the increasing number of automobiles,
"another victory for functionalism over aesthetics."7
Today, the station grounds at Montclair, Chatham,
Madison, Morristown, and Orange, whose buildings are all on
the state and national register, only hint at the
magnificence of their earlier days when railroad
beautif ication was a priority with both the community and
the railroad company. Currently, there is a parking lot on
both sides of the station at Montclair and very few
plantings remain. The other D. L. & W. station gardens have
suffered much the same fate, with their grounds frequently
being replaced by parking lots and the landscaping ignored
108
and untended. Chatham retains some shrubs and weeping
trees, but there is no evidence that they are anything but
remnants of a more attractive past or a fairly recent,
halfhearted attempt at landscaping.
Madison, whose station building is fairly well
maintained, boasts a few shrubs around an old stairway and
some trees along the street before it. Its parking lot,
like countless others, has expanded over the years to
accommodate the automobile. (see Illustration 36)
The station and grounds at Morristown retain a great
deal of their historic character, as the parking area and
semi-circular drive have not been changed too significantly
The configuration of the grounds is much the same as it was
in the early 1900s, although the plantings have changed
considerably and lack the careful attention they must have
once received. (see Illustration 37)
At Orange Station the original cobblestone and cement
parking lot is still present, but the four elaborately
planted beds that once decorated the grounds are gone. The
station is, however, currently undergoing restoration and
perhaps, in the process, some of the former splendor of its
grounds will be recalled.
The creative marketing efforts in the tradition that
began with "Anthracitations by Phoebe Snow" and included
excursion pamphlets, fictional short stories, vacation
booklets, suburban guidebooks, and station gardens had
109
ceased by the early 1950s. The D. L. & W. had successfully
manipulated the landscape around it for more than half a
century, but times had changed monumentally since the birth
of the railroad in 1853.
Despite the seemingly irreversible trend towards
automotive and, more recently, air travel, the lessons
learned from the D. L. & W. and its awareness of the land
around it, are extremely valuable for today's society. "The
scenery found in the Pocono Mountains, especially when the
laurel or rhododendrons are in bloom, has not deteriorated
except where the hand of man has eliminated or degraded it
in the name of x Progress '. "8 While progress must be
encouraged, it is important to consider, as the D. L. & W.
did, the resultant effects it has upon our surroundings. As
the remaining countryside is devoured, much of America's
identity, of which the railroad was once a significant part,
is being lost. Modern railroad companies can still promote
the remainder of the country's lands and possibly make their
commuter stations more attractive.
During recent years, Amtrak has been attempting to do
exactly what the D. L. & W. did throughout the nineteenth
century, that is, to encourage people to see America's
countryside by train. Like the railroad companies of the
late 1800s, Amtrak is using the appeal of unspoiled regions,
fresh, clean air and water, and an escape from the stress
and pressures of everyday life to lure today's American on a
110
railroad excursion. While the advertising medium has
expanded, from photographs and pictures, booklets and
brochures, to include television and radio, the message
remains the same.
Another organization that is benefitting from the
breathtaking scenery which the railroads once traversed, is
the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. This non-profit
institution is conserving abandoned railroad corridors and
transforming them into trails and greenways for public
recreation.
Perhaps one of the most practical modern applications
of the railroad's manipulation of the landscape can be found
in the phenomenon of the station garden. , The movement to
beautify station grounds reached its height between 1880 and
1930 but many of the ideas behind it are still valid today.
The railroad played an important role in the development of
our nation and the station was seen as the gateway to
America's small towns.9 Historically, the railroad station
was used to advertise the village and impress both passing
travellers and arriving visitors; today it can still be an
indication of civic pride and represents the community's
economic and social character.
The preservation and restoration of America's railroad
stations is currently an important aspect of the nation's
attempt to save her cultural heritage. Those stations in
towns that have long since lost their rail service are being
111
adapted to new uses, while countless other stations still in
operation today are being extensively renovated and/or
restored. As with any attempt at historic preservation, it
is important to consider the context of these buildings,
many of which once boasted elaborately designed grounds.
Not only the built structures are worthy of preservation,
but their immediate environs are as well. Just as station
grounds were frequently overlooked in the past, so they
continue to be today. Preservationists need to consider the
historic landscaping and context of the station and take the
necessary steps to enhance and not obliterate indications of
the former appearance of the grounds.
Although it is neither economically nor logically
feasible to re-create the elaborate station gardens of the
past, much can be done to remind the public that these kinds
of designed landscapes did indeed exist. In the case of
adaptive use renovations in which the station buildings have
become museums, cultural centers, markets, and restaurants,
the surrounding lands can be transformed into parks or
botanic gardens.10 For those stations which still serve
scores of commuters everyday and have some grounds left, the
lessons of the past are extremely applicable.
The simple designs and low-maintenance plant materials
espoused by men like Donald G. Mitchell, Edouard Andre, and
Parris T. Farwell would facilitate modern station ground
beautif ication. The shade trees and flowering shrubs used
112
historically could make a station more appealing to its
current patrons. For more elaborate gardens, where funds
and space exist, a variety of flowers could be planted to
bring back the vivid color of yesterday's grounds.
Likewise, conifers could provide year-round greenery and
serve as sound barriers for adjacent property owners. Those
stations which have limited funds could use simple ground
covering plants, like pachysandra, to camouflage bare areas
and make the station grounds less dismal.
Besides nineteenth-century plant materials, other ideas
from this era could be adapted to today's needs. Following
the lead of the improvement societies of the 1800s, local
community organizations could join forces' with the railroad
companies to beautify existing station grounds. As Mr.
Mitchell pointed out in 1867, the key to successfully
improving the lands around the railroad station lies in the
cooperative efforts of both the community and the railroad.
Perhaps the modern-day equivalent of the improvement
society, the local garden club, could volunteer time and
labor to this type of undertaking. In addition, the
railroad company might provide these groups with seeds or
young plants. Other possible sources for the necessary
equipment and plant materials include donations from local
businesses, such as hardware stores and nurseries. In
addition, the commuters themselves might be encouraged to
lend support to these efforts.
113
Following the example of the nineteenth-century
schoolgarden, the station's grounds could be beautified with
the aid of local schoolchildren. In this case, water and
supplies were donated by the town and its businesses
respectively. The railroad provided the land and sometimes
the required materials as well, while the local children
supplied the labor. This joint venture between the
community and the railroad company would still be feasible
today.
Although the railroad has continued to decline over the
last fifty years, its imprint on the landscape of the United
States survives in the suburban form of our great cities and
in the countless miles of rails criss-crossing the nation.
The railroad was a major force in shaping the country and
its self-image during the nineteenth century and its effect
upon both the culture and the environment of the people are
still evident today.
114
NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX
1. Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America:
Culture & Society in the Gilded Age (New York: Hill and
Wang, 1982), p. 157.
2. Anderson Notter Finegold, Inc., Recycling Historic
Railroad Stations: A Citizen's Manual (Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Department of Transportation, 1978), p. 1.
3. Trachtenberg, p. 159.
4. Trachtenberg, p. 159.
5. House Beautiful 37(January 1915), p. 36.
6. All Stations - A Journey through 150 Years of
Railway History (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1981),
p. 99.
7. Jeffrey Richards and John M. MacKenzie, The Railway
Station: A Social History (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1986) , p. 183.
8. Thomas Townsend Taber, The Delaware. Lackawanna &
Western Railroad**The Road of Anthracite**in the Nineteenth
Century 1828-1899: The History of the Formation and
Development of the D. L. & W. ; Family' of Railroads, and
Their Locomotives, which, in the Following Century Became
One of Our Most Admired and Beloved Railroads Vol 2. (Muncy,
PA: Thomas T. Taber III, 1981), p. 9.
9. Anderson, p. 1.
10. All Stations, p. 105.
115
R-» a J it:
116
Illustration 2: George Inness Delaware Water Gap 1857
117
MARK TWAIN SENT THE ABOVE TELEORAM AFTER /kTRIF I ROM NEW TORK TO EJ.MIRA OVER THE
CLEANEST RAILROAD IN AMERICA.
ITITMROUOM TRAIN!. ALL VEVTieuLEO. ARE MADE UP OF COMFORTABLE COACHE*. LUXURIOUS *LEEF1N0 CARt, FINE CAFE
ROOMV FARLOR CAR»
IT 13 THE SHORTEST LINE BETWEEN NEW YORK AND BUFFALO AND BETWEEN NEW YORK AND
VIA BUFFALO. IT CIVES A FAST SERVICE BETWEEN NEW YORK AND ST LOUIS AND KANSAS
j E. G. Russell. T. W. Lee. B. O. Caldwell.
Illustration 3: Lackawanna Railroad Advertisement, c. 1899
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania (PHMC)
Illustration 4: Lackawanna Railroad Advertisement, c. 1902
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania (PHMC)
118
illustration 6: The Spring, Lake Hopatcong, June 20, 1914
Illustration me ^ y^ ^^ ^ MorristQwn and ^rris Township
Illustration 7: Sunnyside, Lake Hopatcong, August 23, 1911 rTWjnchin
The Free Public Library of Morristown and Morris Township
120
Illustration 8: Delaware Water Gap 1874
121
Illustration 9: Lackawanna Railroad Invitation, September 26, 1899
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania (PHMC)
«r
[OCILD you view a landscape radiant
in tbe gorgeous beauty of Autumn ;
fields of amber and of brown ; mountains
buried 'neatb all tbe warm hues of feature ;
valleys where green borders tbe silver of
sweeping streams and rippling rills? ^
cde would have you, if you would, and
with this in view it is our pleasure to
evtry Miu extend to you tbe courtesies of tbe Lack-
ib awanna Railroad en route to tbe forty-
putuwaqi*. fourth Annual Convention of tbe Ameri-
can Association of General passenger
and Cichet Agents to be beld in Boston,
October 17th, 1899. r*
Cde would, also, tbat tbe members of
your family might enjoy this charming
ride, and if you will advise, giving full
names, it will be our pleasure to forward
the necessary transportation.
Ycrj> respectfully,
Traffic Manager. Gtntnl Passtnger ^\Agtnt.
September 26th, 1899.
Office of tbe ft #
Oen. passenger rtgenr,
16 exchange place, #
r*ro> York City. ,f ,<f
122
lb Exchanci Place.
New York. June 17, 190s.
^#4
Dlar Six :
The Lackawanna Railroad herewith presents its compli-
ments and invites yon to become one of a party of newtpapcr
mtn who will make a little jaunt on June 28th and 29th to a
few of the attractive mountain and lake resorts along its line.
For the accommodation of this party a special train will leave
Barclay and Christopher Street stations at 10 A. M., on the
morning of June 28th. running direct to Lake Hopotcong.
New Jeisey, where the party will stop for luncheon. After a
trip around the lake the journey will be resumed to Delaware
Water Gap, in the mountains of Pennsylvania, where, on
behalf of the hotel proprietors of that place, the party is in-
vited to take dinner and spend the night. The following day-
will be devoted to visiting the resorts of the Pocono Mountains.
winr.iT being served at Mt. Pocono.
Returning, the train will leave Mt. Pocono Sunday even-
ing at 8 o'clock, arriving at New York shortly after 11 P. M.
In order to keep this party down in size, so that it may be
run upon the schedule of the limited trains and give the max-
imum amount of comfort to its guests, it is necessary for us to
restrict the representation of each paper to one person.
Kindly do me the honor of advising me whether this invi-
tation is accepted, and, if so, state the name of the represent-
ative who will be with us, in order that proper transportation
may be forwarded at once. A detailed itinerary of the trip
will be sent with the transportation. It is our intention to
make this an enjoyable two days' outing in the mountains,
and I trust that we may have the pleasure of including yon in
the party.
i? 7K kp-*-^
General Passenger Agent. '
EXCURSION
OP
NEWSPAPER EDITORS
Illustration 10:
Lackawanna Railroad
Invitation (Railroad
Museum of Pennsylvania, i
PHMC)
LAKE HOPATCONG
DELAWARE WATER GAP
MOUNT POCONO
123
llustration 11:
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125
Illustration 13: Cranberry Lake
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania (PHMC)
126
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127
PASSENGER DEPARTMENT,
25 Exchange Place, New York City.
T. W. 1XE,
General Ptsitngsr Aqinl.
CEO. W. HAYLER,
A»3H:»nt Cen»r»l Ptisenger Ajenl.
March 24, 1903.
Dear Sir— „ _ .
In our effort to encourage the summer patronage of the resorts in Monroe County, I ennsylvania. we
are advertising these resorts extensively in the magaz.nes and newspapers, as will be seen from the following
illustration which appears in the April issues of more than LOO of the leading periodicals ol the country.
We believe yon will be interested in seeing this advertisement. It is inserted solely at our expense.
Yours trulv,
T. W. LEE.
Oenernl I'luwninr A Man I
Delaware Water Gap
Lackawanna
Railroad
In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Pennsylvania,
surrounded by delightful resorts at Stroudsburg
and throughout the Delaware Valley; an ideal
region for spring and summer. A beautifully Illus-
trated book describing these resorts and containing a fascinat-
ing love story entitled "For Reasons of State," will be sent
on receipt of 4 cents in stamps. Address T. W. LLE. Ceneral
Passenger Agent, Lackawanna Railroad, New York City.
Illustration 15: D. L.
& W. Railroad Advertisement, March
UUCJ
1903
2B Exchange Flace, Naw YarV: City.
CEO. UT. HAYLER.
A«il»t«nt General Piiiiim
March 24, L903.
Ueak Sir
In our effort to encourage the
mer patronage Oi the resorts n. Monroe County, Pennsylvania, we
ire advertising these resorts extensive! v in the magasina and newspapers, as will be seen from the following
llustration which will appear in the Mav issues of more than LOO oi the leading periodical! of the country
n you will be interested in seeing this advertisement. It is inserted solely at our expense.
Yours trulv,
LEE.
X. W.
'«•' An
POCONO
MOUNTAINS
Lackawanna
Railroad
A region of woodland and water, 2,000 feet above sea level
in northeastern Pennsylvania ; dry, cool and invigorating ;
splendid roads ; modern hotels. A beautifully illustrated
book describing this region and containing a fascinating love
story entitled " For Reasons of State," sent on receipt of 4 cents in
postage stamps. Address T. W. LEE, General Passenger Agent, Lacka-
wanna Railroad. New York City.
r,-,..-*.~+i~, lfi, n_ L. & W. Railroad Advertisement, March 24,
1903
Illustration 17: D. L. & W. Railroad pamphlet, c. 1899
Railroad Musuem of Pennsylvania (PHMC)
A FEW
1
POINTERS
ABOUT
Fi3h
ing and Shooting
ALONG
Lackawanna railroad
Lackawanna
Railroad
■-^•- N.r -
>nn. . ,
"Revo***.
Illustration 18: Mountain and Lake Resorts front cover, 1942
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania (PHMC)
131
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LACKAWANNA SUBURBS -I
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Illustration 20: D. L. & W.
Railroad Ml
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LIFE B Y THE INCH
1P=
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******
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LIFE BY THE ACRE
134
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136
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137
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138
139
Illustration 27: D. L. & W. Railroad booklet, 1935
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania (PHMC)
ALONG THE MAIN LINE
THE ORANGES
ANDMAPLEWQDD
AI.TITUDI: IVi lo I III led I'UI'I
I.ATION lfifi.oc.Mi CiOVIiRNMIiNT
Husl Orange Council manic; Orange Citj
Commission; West Orange— Town (um
mission . South Orange— Board ol Trus-
tees; Mapiewood — Township Committee
SCHOOLS— 56 Grammar; i Higli Schools;
6 Junior High Schools; 9 Parochial; Upsal.i
College; Carteret Academy for Boys; Beard s
School; Dearborn Morgan School for Girls;
Sc-ton Hall College; Rosemonl Hall lor
Girls; The Misses Clark's School, ami a
number of specialized schools for the arts,
languages and business. CHURCHES — S>2.
PARKS — 7 large parks; the South Moun-
tain Reservation of 22,000 acres; the Eagle
Rock Reservation of 408 acres; 22 play-
grounds in addition to those of the schools;
2 Municipal Golf Courses; a public stadium.
THEATRES— 11. CLUBS— More than HO
clubs offer a wide range of activities to the
resident. Among these there arc about 50
fraternal organizations, '10 women's clubs
and 15 civic groups. Beside literary, dra-
matic, musical and art clubs there are several
country and athletic clubs. HOSPITALS — i.
Topographically, the Oranges and Maple-
wood are a series of terraces extending from
the broad meadows near the outskirts of
Newark to the summit of the rugged Wat-
chung Mountain Range. Within their
boundaries is an impressive system of county
parkways, playgrounds, parks and reserva-
tions which are a continual source of pleas-
ure to the residents, particularly those with
children. It is possible to drive for an after-
noon through what seems almost primitive
country, and yet never pass the corporate
limits of these suburbs. And when one
stands on the famous Eagle Rock and looks
cast, he can see* the homes of 10,000,000
people, while, to the west he can look over
virgin forests which extend for miles.
This section was a flourishing, happy and
peaceful community over a century before
the Revolutionary War. Later, because of its
natural beauty and its climate, it became
popular as a health resort for wealthy New
Yorkers. From that time it has developed
into the great suburban area which it is to-
day. In East Orange and Orange one finds
many modern apartment houses and coop-
erative apartment residences as well as indi-
vidual homes, while in West Orange. South
Orange and Maplewood the single family
dwelling is still the rule.
140
Illustration 28: Chatham Station, c. 1926
Illustration 29: Madison Station, c. 1926
142
Illustration 30: Morristown Station, c. 1920
The Free Public Library of Morristown and Morris Township
Illustration 31: Lackawanna Railroad Station, Morristown
The Free Public Library of Morristown and Morris Township
UekJwanu R. R- Station,
»■«. N. J.
143
Illustration 32: Morristown Station
The Free Public Library of Morristown and Morris Township
Illustration 33: Railroad Station, Morristown
The Free Public Library of Morristown and Morris Township
lil Koad Station. - Monlatown N. J.
144
JTtLEET SIDE ELEVATION
A PASSENGER STATION AT ORANGE; N J
34: A Passenger Station at Orange:
Illustration 36: Madison Station, 1990
Illustration 37: Morristown Station, 1990
APPENDIX A
The Story of Phoebe Snow
It's time to go with Phoebe Snow
Where banks of rhododendron blow
In pink and white on every height
Along the Road of Anthracite.
It's time to go where records show
It's cooler ten degrees or so
By Fahrenheit each Summer Night
Along the Road of Anthracite.
Miss Phoebe's there don't you know wherel
Why, Water Gap on the Delaware.
Good sport in sight, both day and night;
Go by the Road of Anthracite.
A birch canoe and Phoebe foo,
Already there to welcome you.
The season's right, the distance slight
Upon the Road of Anthracite.
The wondrous sight of mountain height
At Water Gap brings such delight
She must alight to walk a mite
Beside the Road of Anthracite.
Goodbye to Care! It's time to share
With Phoebe Snow the mountain air,
The towering height and vistas bright
Which mark The Road of Anthracite.
Each passing look at nook or brook
Unfolds a flying picture book,
Of landscape bright, or mountain height,
Beside the Road of Anthracite.
148
No trip is far where comforts are,
An Observation Lounging Car,
Adds new delight to Phoebe's flight
Along the Road of Anthracite.
An hour's ride and she's beside
Niagara Falls of fame worldwide -
Her garb of white remains just right
She thanks the Road of Anthracite.
The evening flies till Phoebe's eyes
Grow sleepy under mountain skies.
Sweet dreams all night are hers till light
Dawns on the Road of Anthracite.
Not far apart from Nature ' s heart
Miss Phoebe plies her skillful art,
Both appetite and mountain height
Are reached by Road of Anthracite.
APPENDIX B
Orange Station Plant Lists
Plot No. 1
Cornus florida,6.
Prunus pissardi,4.
Cercis canadensis, 5.
Thuja occidentalism.
Abies pungens kosteriana, 1.
Acer schwedleri , 4 .
Acer Platanoides, 12.
Berberis thunbergi, 1600.
Hibiscus (althea) variegata, 15.
Deutzia gracilis, 20.
Acer dissectum atropurpureum, 1.
Iris, Assorted, 50.
Magnolia soulangeana , 1 .
Retinispora plumosa,16.
Retinispora filifera,14.
Retinispora obtusa,8.
Retinispora compacta, 10.
Retinispora pisifera aurea,4.
Biota elegantissima, 4 .
Juniperus pf itzeriana, 20 .
Juniperus virginiana, 10 .
Juniperus japonica,8.
Juniperus japonica aurea,4.
Juniperus chinensis,2.
Juniperus hibernica,6.
Thuja occidentalis, 20.
Thuja occidentalis aurea lutea,4.
Thuja occidentalis boothi compacta, 8.
Thuja occidentalis globosa,8.
Plot No. 2
Deutzia crenata,20.
Deutzia Lemoinei,10.
Hydrangea, 15.
Cornus alba, 15.
Magnolia glauca,8.
Magnolia speciosa,2.
Forsythia suspensa,15.
Forsythia viridissima, 15 .
Hibiscus althea, 30.
Ligustrum aureum,15.
Aronia arbutif olia, 20.
Weigela Candida, 20.
150
Plot No. 2 (continued)
Rhodotypos kerroides, 15 .
Spiraea wilsoni,20.
Viburnum lantana,20.
Tamarix africana,20.
Tilia plataphyllos, 4 .
Quercus palustris,4.
Tsuga canadensis , 3 .
Ligustrum ovalif olium, 430 .
Pinus excelsa,l.
Rosa rugosa rubra, 20.
Rosa rugosa alba, 20.
Berberis thunbergi, 25 .
Euonymus alatus,25.
Platanus orientalis, 7 .
Abies orientalis, 1 .
Cydonia japonica rubra, 25.
Weigela variegata, 25 .
Weigela Eva Rathke,25.
Deutzia Gracilis, 25.
Hypericum aureum,15.
Acer japonicum atropurupureum, 3
Magnolia lennei,l.
Ampelopsis veitchi,40.
Rhododendron maximum, 50.
Spiraea vanhouti,30.
Hibiscus althea, double pink, 20,
Hydrangea, 25.
Berberis thunbergi, 75 .
Ligustrum, 2 .
Plot No
Taxus cuspidata,4.
Taxus repondens,8.
Rhododendron catawbiense, 20 .
Ilex crenata,12.
Mahonia aguifolia, 30 .
Cryptomeria lobbi compacta,4.
Pachysandra terminalis, 50 .
Rosa Mrs. Cutbush,130.
Andromeda catesbaei , 80.
Andromeda aborea,2.
Acer atropurpureum,2 .
Abies pungens kosteriana, 6.
Morus pendula,2.
Spiraea vanhouti,20.
Spiraea Anthony Waterer,15.
Weigela variegata, 15 .
Populus fastigiata, 22 .
Juniperus virginiana, 23 .
151
Plot No. 3 (continued)
Thuja occidentalis, 32 .
Prunus pissardi,4.
Cytissus laburnum, 2.
Sorbus aucuparia,2.
Cornus florida,6.
Sambucus aurea,20.
Syringa, 35.
Crataegus oxyacantha, 5 .
Arelia spinosa,4.
Berberis thunbergi , 25 .
Buddleia veitchi,20.
Colutea arborescens , 15 .
Calycanthus floridus,15.
Corylus purpurea, 15.
Clethra alnif olia , 20 .
Chionanthus virginiana, 10 .
Plot No. 4
Betula laciniata, 60.
Picea polita,26.
Picea pungens,25.
Populus fastigiata, 12 .
Juniperus virginiana, 13 .
Ligustrum ovalif olium, 26 .
Deutzia lemoinei, 30.
Spiraea Anthony Waterer,25.
Hypericum aureum,30.
Hydrangea arborescens, 50.
Hydrangea paniculata grandif lora, 30.
Spiraea thunbergi, 20 .
Spiraea vanhouti,30.
Spiraea wilsoni,20.
Weigela candid, 15.
Weigela variegata, 15 .
Weigela Eva Rathke,15.
Weigela rosea, 15.
Buddleia veitchi,20.
Viburnum dentatum,25.
Lonicera tatarica,20.
Syringa persica,20.
Euonymus alatus,20.
Philadelphus cornoarius, 20.
Corylus purpurea, 10.
Forsythia amabilis,25.
Forsythia viridissima, 25 .
Magnolia stellata,2.
Magnolia glauca,4.
Cytissus laburnum , 4 .
152
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THE DELAWARE, LACKAWANNA & WESTERN RAILROAD COLLECTION
THE RAILROAD MUSEUM OF PENNSYLVANIA
(PENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL & MUSEUM COMMISSION)
STRASBURG, PENNSYLVANIA
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160
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