* east mauch chunk on the opposite bank, actually sited nnw of the 'town on the highway' was a very different community with a culture rooted in timbering, boat building (in support of the operations of the opposite shore), the lehigh valley railroad, and competing coal mining concerns. During the 19th century and into the early 1920s, its citizens really had little daily intercourse with mauch chunk, separated both by the lehigh and two competing railroads on each bank. No ferry service existed, so a boat would have to be chartered. It was combined with mauch chunk after a steel bridge connected the two above the railroad tracks enabled combination as a new borough named 'jim thorpe, pennsylvania' in honor of olympic hero athlete jim thorpe—the new town situated along both sides of the river. Date: 1839.
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