Haystack Mountain (Pennsylvania)
| Haystack Mountain | |
|---|---|
| Highest point | |
| Elevation | 1,871 ft (570 m) |
| Prominence | 1,871 ft (570 m) |
Coordinates: 41°10′45.9″N 75°53′31.22″W / 41.179417°N 75.8920056°W
Haystack Mountain (Pennsylvania), is an otherwise non-descript 1871 ft peak forming the steep southwestern faces of the Solomon Gap mountain pass's saddle connecting and dividing the Wyoming Valley from the Lehigh Valley.
On the opposite side of the saddle, which forms an important multi-modal transport corridor is the much higher Penobscot Mountain. The peak is part of a ridge descending southwesterly toward Hazelton and within sight of the western fringe of the Poconos while being located today within the incorporated boundaries of Mountain Top, Pennsylvania. Through the Solomon Gap pass northeast and below it lies an important multi-modal transportation corridor channeling a busy railroad right of way and through which PA Route 309 and PA Route 437 funnel paralleling the pioneering railway which built the area. At one time before incorporation, Mountain Top and the saddle of the pass was known by the Amerindian name Penobscot, which name has also been given the opposite higher peak, Penobscot Mountain. Together, the peaks and pass forms part of the drainage divide between the Lehigh Valley & greater Delaware River drainage basin and the Wyoming and Susquehanna Valley, part of the Potomac River drainage basin. Because of the strong barriers of the local East-West oriented ridge lines of the local Ridge and Valley Appalachians chain, the Solomon Gap pass formed between the two peaks was one of the few places a railroad could be envisioned in the 1830s when the fuel crises in eastern cities demanded easier transportation to the Northern Anthracite Coal Fields. Ironically, the company forming the railroad which cut over 100 miles off the trip from Philadelphia to Wilkes-Barre was the same entity with a near monopoly in providing coal from the Southern Anthracite region, Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N, f.1821), which had built both the Lehigh Canal, but also the nation's second railway, the Summit Hill & Mauch Chunk Railroad. The LC&N company seemed to relish taking on tasks which left others running, and developed the technology to make the task happen.
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