Most people don’t even know it’s there. Locals generally ignore it because of the reputation it acquired a few years ago when it held a little skateboard park, which wound up being vandalized. But as with all things, you really need to see Kemmerer Park for yourself.
So I wandered over there recently during a morning walk. My girlfriend had told me the flowers were especially beautiful at the moment. Getting to the park is an easy stroll up Mansion House Hill across from the Harry Packer B&B. I’m not a horticulturist nor do I really know the names of any flowers, but I would have to have had a stone in my chest not to have been moved.
I was the only one there, it was about 7:30 AM. The sun was just beginning to crest the hillside and outline the profile of St. Mark’s Church. The air was cool, and I heard the distant hum of the occasional car as it climbed its way out of town on Route 209. Flowers were in bloom everywhere, buds were springing to life on the trees and bushes, and the scent of dew was on everything.
The Mahlon S. Kemmerer Mansion occupied the area from 1879 to 1927, when it was dismantled to make way for a town park. Kemmerer himself was one of the prominent citizens of Mauch Chunk who had made his fortune in coal. His business interests extended as far as Wyoming, where the town of Kemmerer is named after him. The Wentz mansion was just next door, built in 1886. Deterioration sadly resulted in its demolition in the 1960’s. Now the site is a parking lot for the Carbon County Annex Building.
It’s hard to avoid the sense that the town doesn’t know what it has here: the views are lovely, the benches are positioned to provide privacy and quiet, and the place seems to brimming with various types of trees, bushes and flowers. I had the sense I was in a garden somewhere in Asia rather than Jim Thorpe, PA.
I used to always bring my sister’s kids here when they were young. There is a great swingset (I promise you, you’ll try it yourself), and other playground apparatus that are situated in a very unobtrusive way that help make Kemmerer Park a place that everyone can enjoy.
The mansion in the picture above is actually the Leisenring/Wentz mansion, which was (as can be seen) directly behind the soldier’s monument, at the front of Mansion Hill. This was built by Mr Leisenring, a wealthy businessman, on the spot where Josiah White’s stately Whitehurst mansion had been. (That house was moved across town – a story in itself.)
The Kemmerer mansion was an amazing home that would have been about 200 yards straight behind the pictured mansion… about where the basketball/tennis court is now. It was a Swiss Chalet style home, stupendously grandiose, even for this rich little town. Alas, when the town fell on hard times, the Kemmerer’s daughter (who had moved to New York) decided it would be better if the building were taken down instead of let go to ruin. The Wentz mansion, as noted, was let go, and ultimately had to be turned into a parking lot. However, the daughter left the Kemmerer grounds to the town, and so we have that amazing park with so much beauty that the writer discovered!
Dr. George S. Wentz use to be the company doctor for the Coxe mining company in Eckley. He married John Liesenring’s daughter Anna. The mansion was built in 1885, and later became the home of the Loyal Order of the Moose. There was an entire stuffed moose on the top balcony of the turret that overlooked the town and the Lehigh River. It was abandoned sometime in the 1040s when I was a young boy and became dilapidated with the front porch roof caving in. It was demolished in 1954 around the same time that the town of Mauch Chunk was changed to Jim Thorpe.
Dr. Wentz was from Whitemarsh Pa, northeast of Philadelphia. I believe he was from the Wentz family farm where George Washington plotted the strategy for the Revolutionary War.
The town lost a real landmark gem. It was one of the first things that caught your eye when coming into town from the south mountain road. Even in it’s bad condition, it stood proudly in a cluster among the Packer Mansions.
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A little breif Info. On the assumtion that kemmerer was ignored do to the fact that we had created are skatepark on the abbanded basketball courts wich is false!! If anything my freinds and I (kpc) rebuilt that place and even brought life back to it hosting events and just providing an all around good vibe and awsome recreational use. We had tried to remove the graffiti using goo off and even painting in some cases but the borough was determained to shut us down. Leaving us no were to go or let alone skate (legaly) what happen to kemmerer is a shame, the way it is now well its inevetable. RIP john donahue
[…] itself as it rides into Lehigh Gorge State Park and back, or in one of many local parks including Kemmerer Park on Front Hill. The possibilities for a unique wedding here are endless. The beauty of nature […]
My daughters and I stumbled upon this park a few summers ago. We had lived in JT for 6 years and had no idea it existed! The girls dubbed it “The Secret Garden Park”. We still call it that!
My husband and I went camping with my kids there almost every summer when they were small. My cousin started doing some family searches and stumbled across this park in Jim Thorpe that was named after a family member of mine. My maiden name was Kemmerer and I never even knew this park was there. I am going to take a trip up there since we only live 45 mins from there I would love to see it.
Very good! Let us know what you think!