Rocky Glen Park, a Century of Northeastern Pennsylvania Summers
Near Scranton, Pennsylvania
Rocky Glen Park opened here in eighteen eighty-six at a moment when the anthracite coal region of northeastern Pennsylvania was at the peak of its industrial power, and workers needed somewhere to go on Sundays. The park became that place for a hundred and one years. In the early twentieth century the Laurel Line electric railway made it even easier for miners, factory workers, and their families from Scranton and Wilkes-Barre to reach Rocky Glen.
The park developed a reputation for ethnic celebration days that reflected the immigrant communities filling the coal towns nearby. It featured live performances, midway rides, and for a time one of the region's most celebrated attractions: the Million Dollar roller coaster. Rocky Glen closed in nineteen eighty-seven, as the coal economy that sustained it had long since collapsed.
Its site near Moosic remains a quiet reminder of a century when this corner of Pennsylvania drew enormous crowds.
