Lehigh Tannery

Foundation of Tannery.

Backtracking on 534 I knew of a shortcut to get back home. Before I got back to the intersection of 940 I took a left onto tannery road in Lehigh Tannery, which would take me back to Lehigh Gorge drive. When I was talking to Jim Flynn back at Rockport he mentioned the old tannery for which Lehigh Tannery got its name and I was interested in finding out more.

     Right off of Tannery road as soon as I pulled onto it there was a parking lot to the left and I could see a DCNR sign. I pulled in and got out to see what this site was. I found a deck, which bordered a foundation and information boards explained that this was the old tannery. The sign pictured below talks about the destructive force the tannery had on the surrounding area. The forest were logged and used for the tannins that could be extracted and waste products from the factory were dumped into the Lehigh. This was just one of the many problems for the Lehigh in the past and more will be explain as I get further down the river.

            Since I had never stopped at this location before I wanted to see the trail conditions down to the river. I found a trail and was surprised to find a sign forbidding the launching boats from this site. This was the first time I have ever seen a sign like this on the entirety of the Lehigh. I made my way down the path and could understand the reasoning for the sign. The path lead to a rock outcrop underneath the bridge of tannery road and there was no easy way down to the water.

Tannery Info.

Launching Prohibited.