A Transportation Hub

Over the centuries, transportation here evolved from Lenape boats on the Delaware River and footpaths through the woods to settlers’ wagons on dirt roads, timber rafts floated downriver for sale, and Durham boats carrying materials and goods along the river during the Revolutionary War. The Delaware Canal changed the landscape by providing a way around the river’s falls and rapids through 23 lift locks that helped cargo-filled canal boats overcome elevation changes safely. Lock 22 and Lock 23, the first locks south of Easton, were located here, and each could handle one 80-foot-long by 10½-foot-wide canal boat. In the mid-1800s, the two locks were combined into one wide lock that could accommodate two canal boats at a time, making it the deepest of all Delaware Canal locks and giving rise to its local name, Groundhog Lock. In the early 1900s, trolley service reshaped the area again when the hillside west of the lock was excavated for the Doylestown-Easton Street Railway, which covered its 32-mile route in two hours for a fare of up to 88 cents. Automobiles ended that era, and after financial troubles the trolley company went out of business in 1926. Today, PA Route 611 carries traffic north and south, leaving one transportation route where many once existed.

Raubsville, Pennsylvania · United States