Times House News
For your Times in Jim Thorpe
It’s all about the man
Shozo Nagano created this rendering of Jim Thorpe in the clouds for the celebration of Jim Thorpe Day 2000.
If it’s the third weekend in May, it’s time to celebrate the man, athlete and Olympic legend, Jim Thorpe.
The Annual Jim Thorpe Birthday Celebration will be held on Saturday, May 18 and Sunday, May 19 at the Josiah White Park (train station) in Jim Thorpe.
The festivities kick off on Saturday morning at 10:30 am with a Native American tribute at the Jim Thorpe Mausoleum, located at Joe Boyle Circle and Route 903, the site where in 1957 the Jim Thorpe Memorial Mausoleum Committee laid earth from the Prague, Oklahoma farm where Thorpe was born, as well as soil from Saupula, Oklahoma, the Polo Grounds (the former home of the New York Giants, where Thorpe played), the pitching mound of Indian Field at the Carlisle Indian School, as well as the Olympic Stadium in Stockholm, Sweden where Thorpe won the decathlon and pentathlon.
Don Wild Eagle, grandson John Thorpe and Carlisle Guests will be on hand for the ceremony. At 11 a.m., the Olympian Cross Country and Track teams will carry the lighted torch from the monument to the Jim Thorpe High School Stadium to light the Olympic Torch for the Special Olympic Track and Field Competition and then down 903 to the Heights, down Opera House Hill and then down Broadway to Josiah White Park for the lighting of an Olympic Torch.
The Varsity Cheerleaders will stretch a ribbon across Broadway in front of the County of Carbon Court House prior to the arrival of the runners. Medals will be awarded to the team and coach and the resolution that Rep. Doyle Heffley had the Pennsylvania House pass declaring that May 18, 2019 has been named “James Francis Thorpe Day” in the Commonwealth will be read.
Festivities, including Native American dancing and drumming, will continue throughout the weekend at the Josiah White Park. For more information, visit
https://jimthorpebirthday.wixsite.com/event
A beautiful Earth Day in Jim Thorpe but Don’t Mess with our Mountain!
It’s another beautiful day to celebrate Mother Earth right here in Jim Thorpe.
Shelley Holland from Horizons on Race Street puts together a great program every year and this year is no exception. From a river clean up at 9 a.m. to yoga and meditation, a hula hoop contest, face painting, a terrarium workshop, book readings and lots of live entertainment, there’s a plethora of fun to be had. For more information and a complete schedule, visit
http://www.jimthorpeearthday.com/home/4591454878
Particularly appropriate today is a Mother Earth Meditation in the Race Street Park. The SOS committee asks that folks meditate on protecting Flagstaff Mountain, from which Race Street and the National Historic Landmark, St. Mark’s Church is carved.
Carbon County Commissioners announced at their Thursday meeting that they “wanted to get it right” and they are scaling back the Susquehanna Street Project and would not remove any rock from Flagstaff Mountain, which is the church’s foundation.
Though hesitant to believe it, the Save Our Sanctuaries (SOS Committee) was heartened to hear the church would be saved.
Until, in a WFMZ 69 news interview on Friday, Commissioner Wayne Nothstein said, “We may have to go into the hillside a couple of feet but it’s nothing major.”
T-shirt sale proceeds go to the SOS Committee legal fund. Sizes M-XL:$10, XXL-XXXL:$12.00 if interested call 570-657-0198, or they’ll be available at OK Cigars, or St. Mark’s.
The door to messing with our mountain has not been closed, so the SOS committee will continue to pressure the county to abandon the project. We’ll continue to raise funds to cover legal expenses with upcoming fundraisers and T-shirt sales.
For a $200 donation or more, donors can receive a signed David Price watercolor print of Christmas Eve on Race Street. For more information, sos-cc.info
Jim Thorpe Independent Film Festival opens tonight
Get ready for some red carpet fun at the grand old Mauch Chunk Opera House tonight and the third installment of the Jim Thorpe Independent Film Festival, which runs through Sunday. There’ll be a champagne toast,
hors d’ouevres, an open bar and presentation of the Sundance official selection, Mope.
Channeling the rebellious spirit of the Molly Maguires, JTIFF challenged the boldest, most defiant filmmakers to present their work, shatter convention and incite spirited debate. The festival credo is “eyes and minds wide open,” and filmmakers delivered!
MOPE is the tragic true story of best friends Steve Driver and Tom Dong, two low end porn actors who sought fame but gained infamy. JTIFF Partner PBS39 will co-present and film the Thursday night red carpet event! No one under 18 admitted.
For the complete schedule, visit
https://www.jimthorpeindiefilmfest.com/schedule-2019
Happy Earth Day aka Don’t Mess With Our Mountain Day
We are blessed here in Jim Thorpe with incredible architecture and stunning landscapes of the Lehigh River and the three mountains that surround us. It’s the perfect spot to revel in Mother Nature and celebrate Earth Day. In fact, the annual Jim Thorpe Festival will be held this Saturday, April 27 – my next post will highlight the festivities.
Earth Day 2019 is also the perfect day to protect our beautiful mountains and ourselves from man-made threats to those landscapes.
As some of you may know, a proposed county construction project plans to excavate 40 feet into Flagstaff Mountain, just yards away from Tiffany windows and the foundation of St. Marks Episcopal Church, which is the mountain itself. The above photo, taken from my window, shows the exterior view of this National Historic Landmark and the spot where the mountain meets stone and brick.
This is the same mountain from which boulders as big as cars fell and crashed onto Route 209 in September 2017. It’s also the reason for a 13-month project to reign in the mountain, set to begin in the coming weeks.
A letter from the Director and Deputy Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Officer Andrea MacDonald cautioned Carbon County Commissioners against the project and explained, “The orientation of bedding layers in bedrock can increase the possibility of rockslides, collapse, and the transmission of vibrations that can damage masonry, plaster, and glass during demolition and construction.”
We’ve got to protect St. Marks, Flagstaff Mountain (as we are also built into the same mountain) and our town.
MacDonald also noted that beyond its historical and architectural significance as one of the best examples of Gothic Revival architecture designed by Richard Upjohn, St. Marks is “an important community landmark and iconic part of Jim Thorpe’s skyline. It is also one of the attractions that contributes to the community’s reputation as an internationally-renowned tourism destination, which has been a significant economic driver for the region for decades. The pride, stewardship, and commitment the community has made to preserving its history and leveraging it for economic development have made Jim Thorpe a model for small towns throughout the Commonwealth and nation.”
Tell the Carbon County Commissioners, No Susquehanna Street Project and No $13 million + in taxpayer money – for St. Marks, for our town and for our mountain.
For more information,
https://sos-cc.info/
Saving Our Sanctuaries
What a somber afternoon. If ever there was a day to think about saving our sacred sanctuaries, the treasures they hold and the connections generations of our families have had to them, today is that day.
On April 15, 2019, the Monday of Holy Week, a time when even twice-a-year-Mass-attending Christians flock toward their own churches, we gasped in horror and sadness as the spire of the legendary Notre Dame Cathedral collapsed in flames into the 12th century landmark house of faith and history.
While our hearts go out to those that prayed and sang hymns in the street hoping for a miracle to halt the destruction, we are counting our blessings here in Jim Thorpe. Our own grand sanctuary – St. Marks Episcopal Church, although still in jeopardy, there is still time to save the National Historic Landmark and its treasures from damage and destruction. It’s not too late to stop the Susquehanna Street Project.
The estimated $14 million county office and county vehicle parking garage project proposes to excavate 40 feet into the Flagstaff Mountain, just yards away from the irreplaceable Louis C. Tiffany windows and the church’s foundation, which is the mountain itself.
Vibrations in the bedrock layers from the excavation and construction increase the possibility of damage to masonry, plaster and glass.
The Save Our Sanctuaries (SOS) Committee is working hard to prevent this from happening through community awareness and, if necessary, legal action.
The Carbon County Commissioners voted last week to cancel project contracts due to a delay from an appeal of the Borough of Jim Thorpe’s conditional approval of the project. The county solicitor made it clear that this is only a delay and they intend to rebid the project once the appeal is settled.
The SOS Committee is planning several fundraisers to help educate the public and cover legal expenses.
The committee is pleased to announce fine artist David Price has donated 80 signed Christmas Eve on Race Street prints valued at $16,000 to help the committee raise funds to protect St. Marks Church, from which he drew inspiration, and Stop the Susquehanna Project. Donors giving $200 or more will receive a print blessed and embossed with the sanctified nineteenth century Seal of St. Marks.
Price described the church in a letter, “ Richard Upjohn’s country gothic masterpiece with its Romanesque stair and lofty octagonal tower reaching high above the valley is a staggering edifice—one set apart from the more modest stone structures of Penn’s Woods. Hanging precariously from the side of a mountain, the church is renowned for, the splendor of its Tiffany windows, Minton tile floor and reredos copied from Queen Victoria’s private chapel at Windsor. With its connections to New York and Bethlehem, it is unquestionably the jewel in the crown of what is often referred to as the Heritage Corridor.”
Price is a fine artist who lived in the Stone Row for 30 years and was a member of St. Marks for seven years. His watercolors and etchings of St Marks were done while he was an F. Lammott Belin Fellow. A number of these pieces were selected by Judith O’Toole of Wilkes University’s Sordoni Gallery to hang in the Washington offices of former US Representative Paul Kanjorski.
For more information or to donate, call 570-657-0198 or visit, https://sos-cc.info/
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