The History of Lake Wallenpaupack
When it comes to life in the Poconos, vacationing at Lake Wallenpaupack has an incredible amount to offer. Wallenpaupack is an area that encompasses parts of Wayne and Pike Counties in North Eastern Pennsylvania. Today a major tourist attraction for both winter and summer activities, Wallenpaupack is located approximately 115 miles from New York City. It is an area rich in history, having been settled prior to the American Revolution by a group of Connecticut families.
The name Wallenpaupack is over two hundred years old. It is derived from the Lenape Indians of the Delaware Nation who inhabited the region and called the stream running through the land "Walinkpapeek" or "Wallinpaupeek". The Indians' description of the creek translated into "waters, sometimes slow, sometimes swift", though translated from Wlinpapeek, the word means "deep and dead water".
Today the stream of swift and slow waters in which Indian times provided the boundary between Wayne and Pike Counties has become one of the largest and economically productive man-made lakes in the world! Built in 1926 by Pennsylvania Power and Light Company and designed for recreation as well as for electrical power, Lake Wallenpaupack, also known as the "Big Lake", boasts a shore line of fifty-two miles and is some thirteen miles long. It is a center of attraction in the Poconos for sports of all kinds from boating and water skiing in the summer, to golfing on the ice and ice fishing in the winter.
The earliest white settlers were, of course, farmers. But there were numerous other occupations, too. Lumbering in the great virgin forests, small factories powered by an abundance of streams, quarrying of bluestone, the building and operation of the Delaware and Hudson Canal as well as the Erie Railroad brought thousands of people to the Wallenpaupack Area. But the building of the hydroelectric dam at the site of the Lenape "Wallinkpaupeek" River caused a growth spurt in the area which continues to this day.
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