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New bridge will pull Darktown from shadowsJan 27, 2013 (The Morning Call (Allentown - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- When they knocked down the Bricky on Jan. 7, Darktown inched closer to Whitehall Township. It was inevitable, Mike Bednar said. The Bricky -- short for Brick Tavern -- had stood next to his house on Water Street since before the Civil War. His wife was born there. But the old hotel needed to be razed to make way for a new Lehigh Street bridge, the rusting arm that has carried traffic across the Lehigh River to North Catasauqua since the 1800s. Lehigh County says the project will improve the Water and Lehigh streets intersection, making it easier to drive past Bednar's front stoop. It means a stronger connection between Water Street and the rest of Whitehall Township, and, by extension, Darktown and the rest of the world. "It takes away from the old feeling of the street," Bednar said. "We used to be like an island here." You can't stop progress, after all. But, as Darktown has proven, you can delay it. In the 1880s, the Thomas Iron Company brought electricity to Hokendauqua, where it was based. But it didn't provide power to the last street next to the Lehigh River. There are different theories as to why it took power so long to arrive. Local historian Ed Pany says it's possible the Thomas Iron Company had provided power to all the homes of its top brass and decided extending the lines down the hill to two rows of homes owned by workers wasn't worth it. One thing is clear, when Hokendauqua had electric lights burning, Water Street remained a dark town. And the name stuck. Darkness had its perks. When Thomas' mostly Slovak and Welsh employees finished a day's work, there were no bars in Hokendauqua. So they often headed across the railroad tracks toward the river for an evening of carousing by cover of darkness in Darktown. In those days, as many as 10 taverns served booze there. "We are the other side of the tracks," said Bednar's wife, Donna Bednar, laughing. She didn't mean that figuratively. To the east, the Lehigh River separates Darktown from North Catasauqua. But to the west, railroad tracks once cordoned off Darktown from Quarry Street in Hokendauqua. You were part of a club if you grew up in Darktown, said Ed Tomcics, a third-generation Darktownian. The kids in the school noticed -- everyone in Hokendauqua lived on one side of the tracks. You lived on the other. "Kids looked at you like you were different," he said. "But I always felt I was just as good as them." The Ironton Rail Trail has replaced the tracks. George Washington never slept in Darktown, as far as the Bednars know. But William Cody, the legendary Buffalo Bill, came in on the train in 1910 and stayed in one of the hotels, Bednar said. That's the story, anyway. The Bednars are among the last of the old timers. Mike Bednar was born 64 years ago in the house where he lives to this day. Two years later, his wife was born next door in the Bricky. Their parents and grandparents came from Darktown. It was quiet. All over the Lehigh Valley, factories pushed out steel and cement. In Darktown, the slate-gray Lehigh slid past and the occasional train roared through town. Darktownians walked to jobs in Hokendauqua or crossed the bridge on foot to visit the Slovak church in North Catasauqua, where many of the residents had memberships, Pany said. Darktown joined the rest of the area on the electrical grid in 1913. Like its neighbors, Darktown did its part in World War II, The cluster of about 40 houses spanning about a city block sent more than 30 men to fight in Germany and Japan. When Hokendauqua added a World War II memorial in the 1940s, Darktown's residents discovered the names of their soldiers weren't listed, Tomcics said. So somebody on Water Street put up a memorial at the Darktown Fire Company building. When the building sold recently, Tomcics asked Whitehall Township to move the memorial. The township moved it a few houses down, added a concrete pad and new flag poles. Tomcics added concrete blocks representing all the branches of the military. Behind a glass pane, 32 names are written in black ink. Mike's and Donna Bednar's fathers are among them. Tomcics, who still lives in the house where his father and grandfather lived, hoists the twin American flags and keeps them clean. It's one of the last shreds of Darktown's identity. Next to the memorial, someone posted the name Darktown on the side of a barn. Most of the bars disappeared by the end of World War II. The Bricky became an apartment building. And Darktown now is home to about 100-150 residents, whose modest homes line the narrow street. The Bednars devoted a garden across Water Street to the town. A brass plaque calls it "Darktown Estates." Donna Bednar painted a red wagon she'd unearthed from her attic with the words "Darktown Express." The Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor goes along the Lehigh River through Darktown, bringing hikers and bicyclists to the rail trail. The new bridge is one of the biggest changes to hit Darktown since the early 1990s, when the state Public Utility Commission demolished two railroad bridges over Water Street. Both bridges were so narrow drivers were required to slow down and honk their horns or flash their high beams to let drivers on the opposite side know they were passing through. Maybe this new bridge won't be so bad, Tomcics said. The $15 million project that began this month will be completed by late 2014. It will replace three bridges with one. The abandoned Norfolk-Southern rail bridge and the Ironton Rail Trail bridge will both be scrapped. A new structure will replace the main river bridge, which has decayed over the years, said Glen Solt, Lehigh County's director of general services. After the new bridge goes in, Tomcics says maybe something else Darktown has never seen could follow -- sidewalks. In the meantime, Tomcics wouldn't trade the simple life on the other side of the tracks. "When there's no traffic on the street, it's quiet," he said. "If the river gets a little crazy, I back away from it. If the river is calm, I go fishing." blandauer@mcall 610-820-6533 ___ (c)2013 The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) Visit The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) at www.mcall.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |