“Everyone
should believe in something. I believe I’ll go fishing.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
~ 1817-1862
The
colorful sign of the nearby Ranger Rod & Gun Club (Ranger’s Lake), Coplay,
Pennsylvania, stands out on an early October evening along the Ironton Rail
Trail.
The
Ironton Rail Trail loops more than nine miles through Whitehall Township, the
Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township in Pennsylvania.
The Ironton Railroad was a
shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore
and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted
to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20th
century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of
Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.
In 1996, Whitehall Township
purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the
Ironton Rail Trail.
