Backtrack Books is couched in the gentle mountains of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
Once known as Mauch Chunk — a variation on a Lenape phrase meaning “where the bears live” — the town was a nexus of mining and transportation, quite literally fueling America’s Industrial Revolution.
In the 1820s, coal was shipped from the neighboring town of Summit Hill on the world-famous Gravity Railroad, into Mauch Chunk, to be loaded onto boats on the Lehigh River. To increase efficiency, a Backtrack railroad was laid in the 1840s, enabling empty coal cars to make the nine-mile uphill return to the mine without the aid of mules.
We’re nestled at the foot of Mt. Pisgah, where the Backtrack’s journey began.
