Our story

The Appalachian Mountains formed through two major tectonic collision events, which uplifted and deformed the layers of sandstone, mudstone, and conglomerate that now make up the core of the Kittatinny Ridge. Once as high as the Andes, the mountains have since weathered and eroded to their present elevation of about 1,300 feet at the Lehigh Gap.

As the most recent Ice Age came to an end, the Laurentide Ice Sheet began to recede from present-day Pennsylvania. At this time, a mile-tall wall of ice – likely visible from the Lehigh Gap – towered north of the Kittatinny Ridge. Although the ice sheet never passed through the Gap, the Ice Age left behind a barren and rocky landscape.

The Lehigh Gap is located within the heart of Lenapehoking, the ancestral homeland of the Lenape People. For generations, the Lenape and their ancestors hunted, fished, gathered, and farmed in the vicinity of the Lehigh Gap. A vast savannah atop the Kittatinny Ridge marks the location where Indigenous land stewards once used fire to manage the ecosystem for hunting and agriculture.

In 1791, anthracite coal was discovered about 15 miles northwest of the Lehigh Gap in present-day Carbon County. Mining began a year later.

The Kittatinny Ridge was a sizable barrier that separated the coal mines to the north from the coal markets to the south. As one of only two water gaps in the Ridge within close proximity to the anthracite coal region, the Lehigh Gap was an epicenter of anthracite transportation beginning in the 1820s. Between 1820 and 1912, a bustling network of dams, canal, and railroads was constructed in and along the Lehigh River. The D&L and LNE trails follow two of these historic rail corridors.

Though unforeseen, unintended, and at the time unavoidable, by the 1950s, emissions from NJZ’s two factories had killed off much of the vegetation in and around the Borough of Palmerton. Toxic heavy metals fell from the smoke and built up on the surrounding land. Sulfur emissions produced acid rain that altered the chemistry of the soil. Without roots to hold it in place, one to two feet of topsoil washed away.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designated one of the nation’s first Superfund cleanup sites on about 3,000 acres of land impacted by the pollution. This launched an intensive effort to restore the ecological health of the area.

Under the mentorship of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary’s renowned curator, Maurice Broun, ornithologist Donald S. Heintzelman established the Bake Oven Knob Hawk Watch to collect raptor migration data on the Kittatinny Ridge. LGNC continues the annual Bake Oven Knob Hawk Count to this day.

In the late 1960s, Lehigh County Cultural Center director, Grant White, advocated for the establishment of an environmental education center in the Lehigh Gap. White would later play a lead role in the growth and development of LGNC as a member of its Board of Directors.

Donald S. Heintzelman and Attorney Ben Sinclair founded Wildlife Information Center, Inc. (WIC) to advocate for the protection of wildlife. The organization would operate out of various locations throughout the Lehigh Valley before settling at a storefront property in Slatington, PA.

The members of WIC searched for a site to create an environmental education center. White’s bold idea inspired the group to focus their attention on the Lehigh Gap.

LGNC published the final part of its Ecological Assessment, which found that hundreds of animal, plant, fungal, and microbial species had returned to the mountain since LGNC’s restoration efforts were completed.