by 2nd trick op
Around 1855, the DuPont Company established aa water-powered powder mill on Big Wapwallopen Creek in the valley of the Susquehanna River's North Branch, on the east bank, and about five miles north of Berwick and Nescopeck. Blasting powder for the anthracite mines of the Wyoming Valley, about 15 miles to the north, rather than munitions, was the principal product. The widely-distributed F W Beers atlas of 1873 shows a rail line from the river to the mill, but no connection, as the Pennsylvania Railroad's Wilkes-Barre Branch wasn't extended northward from Catawissa to Wilkes-Barre until 1880.
http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rich/w ... en/History" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. htm
A centennial history(1999) of American Car and Foundry, which maintained a large plant in Berwick for many years, shows a proto of a presumably-wooden boxcar for the Wapwalopen(sic) Railroad. but no mention is made of possible interchange arrangements. DL&W forerunner Lackawanna and Bloomsburg laid rails along the river's west bank as early as 1856, but how (or if) those shipments found their way across the river to Hicks' Ferry and the L&B or possibly, the parallel Pennsylvania Canal - less fire/explosive risk - isn't clear (Carfloat technology had been used as early as the Civil War, on the Potomac and under the tutelage of General Herman Haupt).
The mill closed in 1914, but the relatively-isolated site remains a popular, but unsupervised swimming spot, known locally as the Power Hole, overlooked by the remains of a substantial girder bridge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jiz03pag68" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
So maybe, a little deeper inquiry beyond the usual local sources can turn up some more specifics.
http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rich/w ... en/History" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. htm
A centennial history(1999) of American Car and Foundry, which maintained a large plant in Berwick for many years, shows a proto of a presumably-wooden boxcar for the Wapwalopen(sic) Railroad. but no mention is made of possible interchange arrangements. DL&W forerunner Lackawanna and Bloomsburg laid rails along the river's west bank as early as 1856, but how (or if) those shipments found their way across the river to Hicks' Ferry and the L&B or possibly, the parallel Pennsylvania Canal - less fire/explosive risk - isn't clear (Carfloat technology had been used as early as the Civil War, on the Potomac and under the tutelage of General Herman Haupt).
The mill closed in 1914, but the relatively-isolated site remains a popular, but unsupervised swimming spot, known locally as the Power Hole, overlooked by the remains of a substantial girder bridge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jiz03pag68" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
So maybe, a little deeper inquiry beyond the usual local sources can turn up some more specifics.
What a revoltin' development this is! (William Bendix)