Lost History - Edgemont Park of DuBois / Falls Creek PA

 [ Note: this 'Edgemont Park' is often confused with the 'Edgemont Park' that was owned by Blueridge Traction Company and located near Reading PA ]

(( please click on links to view full size images ))

 After several years of research, I am still at almost the same place as where I started. Thanks to a lack of publicly available documents, and poor records preservation, almost nothing is known about Edgemont Park. 
 Clearfield County property records for the time period are sealed, all newspaper microfilm was removed from the public library a long time ago, and I actually have more documentation than the DuBois Historic Society. Photographs and promotional material seem to be non-existent ( or long lost in people's attics ) .

 I believe Edgemont Park was the first electric trolley park in the world.
 DuBois Pennsylvania was among the first cities in the world to adopt electric trolley cars. The DuBois Traction Passenger Railway Company started in 1890 and opening their first line with 3 trolley cars on October 17, 1891. During initial expansion in 1892, a line was ran to Edgemont Park. 

 The park had an artificial pond where folks could row boats [*1] [*2], a grand stand pavilion [*9], paths + an island where the picnic grounds where [*3], and an outdoor theater for up to 1,000 people [*4].

In 1894 Edgemont Park was known as "Electric Park" [*5]. By 1915 it was officially known as "Edgmont Park and Picnic Grounds" [*6] ( the misspelling was corrected by 1917 ).

 The size of the park is unknown, the precise location is unknown ( no surviving maps have it marked ), the owners are unknown ( it is listed as an asset of the DuBois Traction Company in 1916 [*7] ), and the opening & closing dates are unknown. Multiple floods and a large scale flood control project preformed by the US Army Corps of Engineers  in 1971 had completely erased all traces of the Edgemont Park property.

 Using what little photographic images that are available and a 1922 Pennsylvania survey map [*8], I am confident I found the exact location based on the rail lines shown on one postcard [*9] [*10]. I also believe the park may have stopped operations in late 1926, when the entire electric trolley system was shut down due to modernization / paving of the road systems in the area, cheaper public busses, and crippling debt.
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[*1 - Image of boat rowing]
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photos.app.goo.gl/Bp2rU1WAL4ka7tjS9
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[*2 - Part of the artificial pond for boat rowing]
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[*3 - Picnic grove]
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photos.app.goo.gl/wiEZL2uYUqUAZP7X7
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[*4 - Electric Railway Journal 1902]
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[*5 - Newspaper clipping dated August 02 1894]
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[*6 - 10th Annual Pennsylvania Commissioner of Health Report 1915]
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[*7 - Moody's Manual of Railroad and Corporation Securities 1916]
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[*8 - 1922 Pennsylvania survey map showing rail lines. I circles the location that Edgemont Park most likely was ]
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[*9 - Side view of Edgemont Park showing rail lines]
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[*10 - Notice the outline suggesting there was a rail line going behind the park and up hill ?]
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photos.app.goo.gl/8ZBqZe7q5wZh5zqW6
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Your photo showing  a railway or road or path  ascending the hill  in the background matches to  the space between the two railways .. the one that bypasses the goods yards   goes up the hill 


here's a thread which told me to look that side.   (on the railway/road from dubiois to falls creek, its on your RIGHT. )



www.godubois.com/index.php?/forums/topic/533-edgemont-park/   

However,  there was an   Electric Park, and the whole area was railway land, and the side you circle is a good place to build a weir  "artificial lake", and have rowboats on the creek.

 

Park was abandoned in 1917 and sold in 1918 ... I still do not have much information other than a newspaper clipping I found in an archive.

Update:
To add more confusion, there was a real estate sub-division also named "Edgemont Park" owned by 'W. L. Johnston & Sons', running from roughly where current "DuBois Lake" ( Juniata ) is, over to roughly where the current DuBois high school is.