Lansford residents and Borough Council on Tuesday debated how to capitalize on a proposed 30-mile hiking trail, hair-raising local history and the legacy of a 170-year-old coal mine.
The 9/11 National Memorial Trail announced earlier this month it began plans to construct a trail to connect the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor in Jim Thorpe to Pottsville’s Schuylkill River Greenway. Lansford would be one of the trail towns on the Anthracite Connector, Council President Bruce Markovich said.
He said if Lansford is “lucky enough to be picked,” the borough needs to highlight the community’s restaurants, historic buildings and local culture to make it a destination for travelers.
“We have a lot to plan for in the next two or three years, and that's what we need to celebrate. And, the one thing I want to emphasize is, no matter what we come up with here tonight, the most important thing we can do here tonight is get it right,” Markovich told a crowd of around 30 residents at the borough office on Tuesday.
He said developers plan to announce the trail’s route in September.
Markovich stressed that first impressions are everything. He hopes the borough can attract travelers to local businesses. Hikers don’t want to stop in town for a McDonald's or Starbucks, they want to visit "Mom n’ Pop" shops and museums.
The borough will work with Pocono Mountain Visitors Bureau to develop a plan to revitalize Lansford, and Tuesday’s meeting was the first step to hear residents’ ideas for their community's future. Marlyn Kissner and Marianne Rustad represented the bureau at the meeting.
Lansford Borough needs community input to grow tourism
Lansford resident Christopher Ondrus pushed council to incentivize landowners to open retail spaces in downtown Lansford. He said the borough has lost several local businesses since the early 2000s.
“Since 2001, we've had approximately nine buildings that were torn down or were burned down in downtown, and unfortunately, they're all parking lots now,” Ondrus said.
Ondrus recommended council look into business improvement grants like Main Street Matters, which provides financial backing for downtown development from the State Department of Community and Economic Development. He’s the president of Lansford Alive, a nonprofit focused on community revitalization.
“We're planning on sending out a letter to the property owners with information regarding any kind of funding that might be available, whether it be grants or loans, as maybe an incentive to get some of the people that may have an empty storefront. They [also] may not know even know where to begin [to revamp a retail space]. They may own the building. They may … maintain it … but they don't know where to start,” said Ondrus.
Markovich said the community needs to start by tackling how to get more people — including locals — to patronize downtown businesses. He offered that the borough should reconsider some of its redevelopment rules, which he called “archaic.”
“There's no doubt about it, off-street parking and these other requirements that we make people try to conform to — we certainly need to look at doing something … to make it easier to open businesses,” Markovich said.
“But like I said, the most important thing is we have to get the people here,” he said.
While she backed Markovich, Kissner added that the borough cannot grow if the community does not get involved. She said that over her career in community development, successful towns are defined by residents’ dedication to their community.
“Community leaders, a couple of business owners, [need] to really have a vested interest in meeting monthly to really come up with a plan, and have that vested same vision … to make it happen,” she said.
“There's enough of you in this town that … [Pocono Mountain Visitors Bureau] could absolutely help organize that … everything from funding, to the promotion, to amenities, things like that,” Kissner said.
Lansford to invest in coal museum, historic jail, church renovations
Markovich said the borough will invest funding into renovating the borough’s No. 9 Coal Mine and Museum, where visitors can see a miners' hospital that was cut into solid rock deep within the mine.
And, he said, repairs to the 175-year-old Welsh Congregational Church on West Abbott Street will be completed next year.
He added the borough could also expand attractions around the Molly Maguires, a secret society of Irish immigrants in the early 1860s through 1875 who committed a series of violent assaults, arsons and murders. Alex Campbell, one of the Maguires, reportedly lived in Lansford.
Markovich also said the borough could capitalize on the old jail in Lansford, which he said was the site of a massive jailbreak.
“One of the great things that we do have that long the other towns don't have is we have history itself. We have events that a lot of towns don't have. We have the Great Jailbreak of 1902 … The largest jailbreak ever in the history of Pennsylvania. 49 people broke out of jail … during the Great Strike of 1902,” he said.
“We just have so much of that kind of history here that … has to get told … We have history with Frank Sinatra here in town. You know, we have great history with the Molly Maguires … We do have a great oral history here,” Markovich said.
