Honesdale, Pennsylvania: Where the Steam Age Began

On August eighth, eighteen twenty-nine, a British-built locomotive called the Stourbridge Lion made the first run of a steam engine on an American railroad, right here in Honesdale. The engine had been brought over by the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, which needed a way to haul anthracite coal from the mines near Carbondale over the Moosic Mountains to the canal terminus at Honesdale. The Lion was too heavy for the wooden track and never ran again in revenue service.

But the moment stands: this town in the Pocono foothills is where American railroading began. Honesdale also served as the canal end of the Delaware and Hudson gravity railroad, which used the slope of the mountains to let loaded coal cars roll downhill by gravity while stationary steam engines and horses brought the empties back up. The Wayne County Historical Society preserves the story.