History of the Borough of Coopersburg

Borough Banner -- Pam Wallace ©

Today's Main Street in Coopersburg was part of an Indian trail more than two hundred years ago. Horses and wagons followed this trail. Stumps of felled trees and the mud in rainy seasons made travel slow and arduous. Travel from the Moravian settlement in Bethlehem to the port of Philadelphia and return took at least five days. German immigrants and supplies for the colonists from Europe came to this port. Exchange goods from Moravian craftsmen were exported from there.

By 1740 a log "hotel" and stable appeared, just a days trek out of Bethlehem. A general store and crude homes appeared slowly. In 1790, the first permanent home was built. The settlement grew quickly and in 1840 the settlement was named Coopersburg. By 1879, permanent lines were drawn consisting of a "square mile". It now had the status of a Borough with an elected governing body, the Borough Council.

Following in close order was a reservoir east of the Borough with bountiful amounts of clean spring water, and the fire company in 1904. Then, a lodge hall, which served as the church, the Borough Council headquarters, post office and five lodges to become the social hub of early Coopersburg. This 1850's building stands today at 107 S. Main Street, housing small retail stores and apartments. Permanent hotels to serve stagecoach traffic on the Allentown-Bethlehem turnpike sprang up. Martin Kern's home, 377 Main Street, the Barren House, (present social quarters for the Fire Company) and the Van Ness Hotel (presently Fritzinger's Hotel) at Station Ave. and Main St., all served ladies and gentlemen travelers with "genteelness".

Coopersburg Fire Company #1 grew from a hand drawn fire engine and seven volunteer fire fighters to a modern four bay home for fire engines and pumpers at 13 S. Main Street with its social quarters in the landmark house at the corner of East State and Main Street. The Coopersburg Ambulance Corps operates from a well-equipped building next to the Borough Hall on E. State Street.

The days of butcher, iceman, coffee route men, milkmen, green produce men coming door to door were replaced by family operated stores. Along with several fine restaurants within our "square mile", we now have many fast food operations.

From the apothecary store on Main Street complete with leeches and home remedies to a full-scale licensed pharmacy at the chain drug stores in the mall, we follow the progress of medicine. Whereas three general stores once supplied the food and clothing needs of the small town, now we have supermarkets in malls, house banks, pizza shops, drug stores, liquor stores, craft shops, jewelry branches, beauty shops for men, women and children's grooming needs.

In the same vein, we follow pow-wow, midwifery and home nurses who went into individual homes to care for the sick while doing cooking, washing, ironing and all the daily tasks the lady of the house handled. Many times the "nurse" helped in the cow milking department. In the late 1800s, Dr. Cooper trained in the University of Pennsylvania hospital, followed by Drs. Gery Trumbower and Long, who opened practices in their homes. Dr. Arthur Weber, fully trained in medical school and hospital internship, ushered in a new era. We presently have a new cadre of doctors in the area to offer the utmost in care for Coopersburg residents. Dentistry also came from almost barbaric practice to modern painless dentistry. Then, Chiropractic medicine, along with full eye care fill the medical arena for Coopersburg.

The original Coopersburg Telephone Company began with a single switchboard in a home on Thomas Street in 1900. At that time there were twelve subscribers. That figure had grown to over 3,000 when Commonwealth Telephone took over the operations years ago.

At one time, women for the most part, worked in mills in town. There was the hosiery mill, silk mill, BVD factory, ladies outerwear, men's vests and more. The cigar factory, later the BVD building, is now used for manufacturing Perfecta products. The Perfecta building, once a ladies clothing manufacturer, is now housing small stores and a weekly periodical paper. The old Gabriel Hosiery Mill is a sixteen-unit apartment known as Saucon Creek Apartments. The early vest factory was remodeled into a family double home in the late 1930s.

The mail came to Coopersburg by train, and was transported to Main Street with a hand-pulled cart. Horse and buggy later replaced this manual effort. The Post Office was a gathering place for mail going in and out and much conversation. Post cards cost one cent and a letters cost three cents to mail. Today's mail is picked up at homes and businesses by mailmen and transported by truck from a modern Post Office at 400 E. Station Avenue.

The Southern Lehigh Living Memorial Community Park was dedicated to our war veterans and it is a gathering area for ball games, picnics, car shows, Community Day and many other events throughout the year.

For a nice quiet stroll, try our meadows on S. Fourth Street. The quiet stream, once a huge stream providing waterpower for early business, is very clean. It winds through the grassy meadow where young trees have been planted. This is possible because one of the younger descendants from the first Cooper family deeded this piece of land to the Borough to be kept as "Open Land" for Coopersburg residents to enjoy.

The Cooper homestead at 600 S. Main Street became famous for the annual Jersey Cattle Sales, nationally and internationally. During those events, the town was filled with buyers from all over the globe. The Linden Grove Sales Pavilion across the street from the house was constructed to allow sales to continue during inclement weather.

The Pavilion's unique open structure and its significance to the area have helped it to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

When cattle sales were seriously curtailed during the Depression, the large property with its buildings and fields was sold off. The mansion became a Catholic orphanage. It later found new use as Pinebrook Junior College. This old landmark of the Cooper family has been fully restored in 2001.

One more person that helped make Coopersburg famous was Victor Riu, sculptor renown. He sculpted black granite, a very dense igneous rock almost impossible to shape. The black granite was taken from a quarry east of town. Victor and his brothers came from Italy, opened this vein and used the granite as long as they were physically able. Many tombstones and also foundations under the older homes are made of this granite. Among Mr. Riu's sculpture pieces is one at the Muhlenberg College campus, one in front of the Academy of art in Philadelphia, one at the National Zoo in Washington, DC and another in Hawaii. One sculpture went to their childhood town of Trieste in Italy. The Coopersburg Historical Society was fortunate enough to purchase one of Mr. Riu's last pieces of art. "Bent Plane" is presently on display in the Museum at Borough Hall.

The need for horses, carriages, veterinarian, farriers (specialists in horse hoof care), wheel repairs, etc., fostered the Jordan Carriage Shop and the Kern Custom Carriage Shop. As the entire new nation grew, Kern Carriages became famous almost as a status symbol.

From the grand era of horses who worked the fields, felled trees, ground corn, threshed grains, pulled stage coaches to the grand select "go to meeting" horse who took the family visiting friends and relatives after lengthy church services came the horseless carriage of the late 1900s. So as we enter the 21st century, a number of garages and service stations serve the computerized cars. Besides excellent car care, we must mention bicycle shops, auto part stores and antique restoration shops supporting us all.

The Jordan Carriage Shop later became the dye house for the Gabriel Hosiery Mill (presently Saucon Creek Apartments). This same building was used as the snack bar and locker room for the Blu Dov Swimming Pool so popular in the 1930s. That wonderful era came to an end with WWII. The pool rests beneath the Village Center on Main Street.

Perhaps the horse era for the town ended when the earliest horse stable along Main Street was razed to make room for a new Borough Hall and Fire Company as dedicated in 1930. Borough Hall became the social and business hub of the town. The Ladies Auxiliary was organized and it seemed that the kitchen there became their kitchen away from home. Suppers, Lion's club dinners, wedding parties and more came from that kitchen. School graduations and all school functions were held in the auditorium until the school merger, now known as Southern Lehigh School District. The 1904 school building on E. State Street, which replaced the original one room schoolhouse, and the Liberty Bell School on Oxford Street are within the Borough's square mile.

The railroad linking Bethlehem to Philadelphia was completed on 1850. The Baldwin House and a cluster of homes, cigar factory and a grocery store sprang up at the east end of the square mile, near the RR tracks. Today, the Baldwin House still serves meals to residents and travelers.

The old Lodge Hall on Main Street served, among other services, as the first home for Lutheran, Reformed (UCC) and Moravian Churches. The present Moravian church was dedicated in 1884. In 1890, the Lutheran and Reformed churches formed a union church on Thomas Street, known as St. John's Church. In 1967, the Lutheran wing of St. John's separated, forming St. James Church on Route 309.

Not to be forgotten, though outside borough limits, is a true landmark, the Saucon Mennonite Church-serving since 1738. Although the present building is the third building on the same foundation, each time it had to be rebuilt the original plan was followed. (The 1738 building was built of crude logs.) It served as church and school. German was the language spoken and the taught-fee was "three to five cents per head per day". This school was built before settlers built permanent shelter for themselves. Here, the white man met with friendly Indians, many becoming Christians and requesting burial at the church.

From a one-man Saturday night police officer (who also supervised street repair and water supply problems as well as being the church janitor) to the present Coopersburg Police Force, we cover about 60 years of Borough growth. The first paid, trained, uniformed policeman was hired in 1948. That patrolman was Chief Robert Snyder, who retired after a long dedicated career spanning four decades. The present force of trained men and women with well-equipped patrol cars are connected by radio with a central county emergency dispatch system.

The Coopersburg Historical Society meets the third Tuesday in February, May, August, and November of 2008.  The museum is located in Borough Hall, second floor, and is open on the first Sunday of each month from 1 to 4 P.M.  Newsletters are available on the Newsletters page.