Haystack Mountain (Pennsylvania)
Mountain
Haystack Mountain (Pennsylvania), is an otherwise non-descript 1871 ft peak forming the steep southwestern faces of the Solomon Gap mountain pass's saddle connecting and dividing the Wyoming Valley from the Lehigh Valley.
On the opposite side of the saddle, which forms an important multi-modal transport corridor is the much higher Penobscot Mountain. The peak is part of a ridge descending southwesterly toward Hazelton and within sight of the western fringe of the Poconos while being located today within the incorporated boundaries of Mountain Top, Pennsylvania.
Through the Solomon Gap pass northeast and below it lies an important multi-modal transportation corridor channeling a busy railroad right of way and through which PA Route 309 and PA Route 437 funnel paralleling the pioneering railway which built the area. At one time before incorporation, Mountain Top and the saddle of the pass was known by the Amerindian name Penobscot, which name has also been given the opposite higher peak, Penobscot Mountain. Together, the peaks and pass forms part of the drainage divide between the Lehigh Valley & greater Delaware River drainage basin and the Wyoming and Susquehanna Valley, part of the Potomac River drainage basin. Because of the strong barriers of the local East-West oriented ridge lines of the local Ridge and Valley Appalachians chain, the Solomon Gap pass formed between the two peaks was one of the few places a railroad could be envisioned in the 1830s when the fuel crises in eastern cities demanded easier transportation to the Northern Anthracite Coal Fields. Ironically, the company forming the railroad which cut over 100 miles off the trip from Philadelphia to Wilkes-Barre was the same entity with a near monopoly in providing coal from the Southern Anthracite region, Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N, f.1821), which had built both the Lehigh Canal, but also the nation's second railway, the Summit Hill & Mauch Chunk Railroad. The LC&N company seemed to relish taking on tasks which left others running, and developed the technology to make the task happen.
The whole uplands north and west faces overlook the Wyoming Valley from the southeastern corner near Hazleton towards and through the greater south Wilkes-Barre area.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Haystack Mountain (Pennsylvania)” as mountain. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as mountain. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q25205701. Authority coordinates are 41.179, -75.892. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1871 and 1821.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
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- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Haystack Mountain (Pennsylvania)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.