The heavily traveled North Penn corridor began as a Lenape path before carrying stagecoaches, livestock, motorcycles and generations of toll-paying travelers<\/p>\n
Long before Bethlehem Pike carried a steady stream of automobiles through the North Penn area, it served as an Indigenous trail, a stagecoach route and a privately operated toll road.<\/p>\n
The highway connecting Philadelphia and Bethlehem is among the oldest roads in the country, according to research shared by Donald Lewis of the Lansdale Historical Society.<\/p>\n
Its earliest predecessor was a path used by the Minsi, a branch of the Lenape Nation. Over time, the route became known by several names, including the Great Road, the King\u2019s Highway and Bethlehem Road.<\/p>\n
Stagecoach service extended as far north as Line Lexington by 1764. At the time, travelers continuing toward Bethlehem followed what is now Hilltown Pike.<\/p>\n
The \u201cpike\u201d in Bethlehem Pike can be traced to more than a century of private ownership. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, private companies built and operated roads because governments lacked the money needed to finance a rapidly expanding transportation network.<\/p>\n
Those roads became known as turnpikes because travelers paid a collector who moved\u2014or turned\u2014a pole or gate blocking the roadway.<\/p>\n
Toll collectors typically staffed their stations from early morning until 10 p.m. Travelers sometimes avoided paying by passing before or after operating hours or finding alternate routes around the toll gates.<\/p>\n
That practice became known as \u201cshunpiking,\u201d an early predecessor to avoiding a modern toll plaza\u2014or jumping a transit turnstile.<\/p>\n
The Springhouse & Hilltown Turnpike Company was established in 1813 and began operating the road between Springhouse and Hilltown by 1815. Company records from that year included a payment to Howel Griffith for \u201ctending gate.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Credit: Lansdale Historical Society)<\/p>\n
(Credit: Lansdale Historical Society)<\/p>\n
Before the Civil War, the company temporarily adopted the name Springhouse, Northampton & Hilltown Turnpike. It returned to its original name following the war.<\/p>\n
Historic maps show a toll gate near Trewigtown Road and another toll house near Bergey Road. Four toll gates were operating in 1873, while the number increased to seven by the early 1900s. A surviving ticket from the 1890s listed six gates.<\/p>\n
Turnpike tickets documented a network of stops and intersections, many bearing names unfamiliar to modern drivers.<\/p>\n
Present-day Sumneytown Pike was identified as Springhouse, while Evans Road was called Gwynedd Meeting. Hartman Road was Cleavers Road, Stump Road was Sutton Road and Knapp Road was known as Swartley\u2019s Road.<\/p>\n
North Wales Road appeared as Steinmetz Road, the Five Points intersection was identified as Montgomeryville and Line Street was known simply as Township Line.<\/p>\n
Other stops included the Creamery, located near the site of an actual creamery; Chalfont Road Colmar at today\u2019s East Walnut Street; Lansdale Road at West Walnut Street; Peter Evans Road at Lenhart Road; and Hatfield Road at East Orvilla Road.<\/p>\n
The route also included farm-related names that have since disappeared. Reiner\u2019s Road led to the farm of Jacob Reiner, Bloom\u2019s Road connected with a farm and tannery, and Rosenberger\u2019s Road\u2014now Maron Road\u2014led to a Rosenberger family farm.<\/p>\n
A 20th-century ticket later replaced the Creamery designation with \u201c24 Mile Stone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The earliest fare schedules reflected a world before automobiles. Different tolls applied to travelers on bicycles or horseback and to sheep, hogs, cattle, carts, sleighs and carriages.<\/p>\n
After motor vehicles became common, turnpike tickets added motorcycle rates and warned motorists that tickets had to be handed\u2014not thrown\u2014to collectors at each gate. Violators were threatened with legal consequences.<\/p>\n
The turnpike was profitable during the Civil War era, but traffic began declining during the 1870s after the North Penn Railroad expanded into Hatfield and communities farther north.<\/p>\n
As passenger traffic and revenue decreased, so did road maintenance. By 1910, residents of Hatfield and Montgomery townships were complaining about the condition and upkeep of the gravel roadway.<\/p>\n
On Oct. 28, 1919, Montgomery County and municipalities along the route offered the company $80,000 for the turnpike, citing the road\u2019s existing condition.<\/p>\n
Shareholders initially resisted what they considered an inadequate offer. By March 1920, however, they agreed to the sale.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe company\u2019s final meeting, devoted to matters of dissolution, was held on September 15, 1921, after which the road became free to the public,\u201d wrote Lewis in the Society\u2019s Facebook post. \u201cAnd so, as the Roaring Twenties began roaring, so did motor traffic along the Bethlehem Pike. And it has roared ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The heavily traveled North Penn corridor began as a Lenape path before carrying stagecoaches, livestock, motorcycles and generations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-255712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}