Dunmore, Pennsylvania

Dunmore
Borough
Municipal building Municipal building
Dunmore Location of Dunmore in Pennsylvania
Coordinates:
Country	United States
State	Pennsylvania
County	Lackawanna
Government
• Mayor	Patrick W. Loughney
Area
• Total	9.0 sq mi (23 km2)
• Land	8.9 sq mi (23 km2)
• Water	0.1 sq mi (0.3 km2)
Elevation	1,001 ft (305 m)
Population (2010)
• Total	14,057
• Density	1,600/sq mi (600/km2)
Time zone	EST (UTC-5)
• Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4)
Zip Code	18512
Area code(s)	570
Website	http://www.dunmoreborough.org

Dunmore is a borough in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, adjoining Scranton. Dunmore was settled in 1835 and incorporated in 1862. Extensive anthracite coal, brick, stone, and silk interests had led to a rapid increase in the population from 8,315 in 1890 to 23,086 in 1940. The population was 14,057 at the 2010 census. Dunmore has four schools.

History

Dunmore is one of the numerous villages which sprang from the original township of Providence, Pennsylvania. Purchased from the natives in 1754, the territory now embracing this village offered its solitude to the pioneers seeking a home in the wilderness between the Delaware and the Susquehanna rivers until the summer of 1783.

At this time, William Allsworth, a shoemaker by trade, who had visited the Connecticut land at Wyoming for the purpose of selecting a place for his home the year previous, reached the point at evening, where he encamped and lit his fire in the forest where Dunmore was thus founded. The need of more places of rest to cheer the emigrants traveling with heavy burdens induced Mr. Allsworth to fix his abode at this spot. Deer and bear were so abundant for many years within sight of his clearing, that his family never trusted to his rifle in vain for a supply of venison or the substantial haunches of the bear.

The house of Mr. Allsworth, famed for the constant readiness of the host to smooth by his dry jokes and kind words the ruggedness of every man’s daily road, became a common point of interest and attraction to the emigrant or the wayfarer. The descendants of Mr. Allsworth have filled many places of trust and usefulness in the county, and adorned the various walks of social life. In the summer of 1795, Charles Dolph, John Carey, and John West began the labor of clearing and plowing lands in the neighborhood of Bucktown or Corners, as this place was long called after the first foot-path opened from Blakeley to the Roaring Brook crossed the Wyoming road at Allsworth’s.

Edward Lunnon, Isaac Dolph, James Brown, Philip Swartz and Levi De Puy, purchased land of the State between 1799–1805 and located in this portion of Providence Township. The old tavern, long since vanished with its round swinging sign and low bar-room, one corner of which, fortified with long pine-pickets, extended from the bar to the very ceiling, in times of yore, was owned successively by Wm. Allsworth, Philip Swartz, Isaac Dolph, Henry W. Drinker, and Samuel De Puy.

The external aspect of Dunmore promised so much by its agricultural expectations in 1813, that Dr. Orlo Hamlin, with his young wife, was induced to settle a mile north of Allsworth. He was the first physician and surgeon locating in Providence. The population of Dunmore and Blakeley, doubling in numbers and increasing in wealth, warranted Stephen Tripp in erecting a saw and grist mill in 1820, on the Roaring Brook half a mile south of the village.

A store was opened at the Corners in 1820 under the auspices of the Drinker Turnpike; but the village, consisting of but four houses, had but a negative existence until the Pennsylvania Coal Company, in 1847-1848, turned the sterile pasture-fields around it into a town liberal in the extent of its territory and diversified by every variety of life.

By 1875, the township of Providence was dissolved and the land split up into various smaller boroughs and towns with Dunmore being one of them. Today, Dunmore is a borough bordering the city of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

The name Dunmore comes from Dunmore Park, in the Falkirk area of Scotland (home of the Dunmore Pineapple).

Geography

Dunmore is located at (41.417530, -75.624432).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of 9 square miles (23 km²), of which, 8.9 square miles (23 km²) of it is land and 0.1 square miles (0.26 km²) of it (1.11%) is water.

The Roaring Brook flows from the SE and turns west through the Nay Aug Gorge in Dunmore to the Lackawanna River in Scranton. The SE side of the borough is on Moosic Mountain, which the gorge cuts through and Interstate 84/380 uses it partway to the spaghetti junction interchange with Interstate 81 and U.S. Route 6. The Lackawanna Railroad also used the Nay Aug Gorge into Scranton from the Poconos and Northern New Jersey.

Interstate 81 also has an interchange with 347 in Dunmore. Most of the borough is drained by Roaring Brook, except for an area in the west drained by Meadow Brook into the Lackawanna River.

Demographics

Historical population
Census	Pop.		%±
1870	4,311		—
1880	5,151		19.5%
1890	8,315		61.4%
1900	12,583		51.3%
1910	17,615		40.0%
1920	20,250		15.0%
1930	22,627		11.7%
1940	23,086		2.0%
1950	20,305		−12.0%
1960	18,917		−6.8%
1970	18,168		−4.0%
1980	16,781		−7.6%
1990	15,403		−8.2%
2000	14,018		−9.0%
2010	14,057		0.3%
Est. 2014	13,791		−1.9%
Sources:

As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 14,057 people, 5,999 households, and 3,388 families residing in the borough. The population density was 1,579.4 people per square mile (610/km²). There were 6,530 housing units at an average density of 733.7 per square mile (286.6/km²). The racial makeup of the borough was 95.2% White, 1.1% African American, 0.05% Native American, 1.8% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 0.8% from other races, and 1% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.3% of the population.

There were 5,999 households, out of which 22% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.6% were married couples living together, 11.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 43.5% were non-families. 37.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 16% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.18 and the average family size was 2.93.

In the borough the population was spread out, with 17.9% under the age of 18, 62.1% from 18 to 64, and 20% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42.1 years.

The median income for a household in the borough was $33,280, and the median income for a family was $43,354. Males had a median income of $32,855 versus $24,167 for females. The per capita income for the borough was $19,851. About 6.7% of families and 10.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 11.1% of those under age 18 and 11.8% of those age 65 or over.

Economy

Gertrude Hawk Chocolates, founded in 1936, is based in Dunmore. Golo Footwear had its original manufacturing and design facilities in Dunmore until 1957.

Environmental issues

Keystone Sanitary Landfill, the largest landfill in the state of Pennsylvania has been located in Dunmore since 1973, about 450 feet from the Dunmore Reservoir #1, a backup drinking water supply. In 1987, it extended to Throop, Pennsylvania. The landfill was built over mines known for ground subsidence. As of 2015 the landfill accepts over 7,200 tons of trash per day. More than a third of its in-state waste since 2009 is from fracking drill cuttings, drilling mud and fluids. Cuttings are mixed with small amounts of naturally occurring radioactive elements, particularly radium-226. The landfill has been leaking into ground water per its Phase 3 permit application. Run-off is discharged into Eddy’s Creek and the Lackawanna River.

In November 2014, the Dunmore borough council approved a $15.63 million agreement for Keystone as a basis for an extension, and a definition of the landfill as a “pre-existing landfill” to ensure Keystone a more favorable interpretation of the borough’s zoning ordinance against public opinion.

Infrasturcture

Dunmore has four schools, Dunmore High School, Holy Cross High School (formerly known as Bishop O'Hara High School), Dunmore Elementary Center, and Saint Mary's of Mount Carmel Elementary School.

Notable people

• Sister Adrian Barrett (1929–2015), Catholic social worker and educator.
• Christopher F. Burne, a U.S. Air Force Brigadier General.
• Nestor Chylak, American league baseball umpire for 25 years. He was one of only 8 umpires to be elected to Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown 1999. Chylak was also a War Hero in the Battle of the Bulge who won the Purple Heart and Silver Star for valor in combat. Ted Williams claimed Chylak to be "the best ever at his craft." Chylak died in 1982.
• Vic Delmore (1917–1960), National League baseball umpire.
• Carol Ann Drazba, a 1961 graduate of Dunmore High School, was one of the first two American women to be killed in Vietnam when the helicopter that she and fellow nurse Elizabeth Ann Jones of Allendale, S.C., were riding in crashed on February 18, 1966, killing all seven people on board. A monument in Drazba's memory is located at the Gino Merli Center in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
• Vic Fangio, defensive coordinator for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League.
• Joe Mooney, Major League Baseball groundskeeper for more than three decades and a Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame member.
• Paul W. Richards, American Astronaut who flew on Mission STS-102 on board The Space Shuttle Discovery
• John Willard Raught (1957-1931), landscape artist
• John Francis Ropek (1917–2009), Oceanographer for the first under the ice Polar expedition of the USS Nautilus (SSN-571).
• Tim Ruddy, a center for the Miami Dolphins from 1994 - 2003. Most of his career he was the center of Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino.
• Junior Walsh, professional baseball player for the Pittsburgh Pirates

• 

  Drinker Street in Dunmore

References

• Taken from Susan W. Pieroth's compilation

External links

• Dunmore travel guide from Wikivoyage
• Borough of Dunmore