North Third Street Through Time

At Monday evening's Easton Historic District Commission meeting, Lafayette College representatives stated that North Third Street near the base of College Hill was "all about water" about 100 years ago and that the college's plan for a new media center is designed to reflect that the site has a "light industrial" history.

The City of Easton has certainly gone through many changes over the decades and centuries, and we wondered what the area looked like in bygone days. So we did a little digging.

Here are four images of North Third Street that span nearly two centuries...



A sketch of the base of College Hill, circa 1830. The bridge on the left spans Bushkill Creek and seems to be the northernmost tip of North Third Street. The steps to Lafayette College, which should begin where the boy with the fishing pole is standing do not exist yet--in fact, it will be two more years until the founding of the school. Image taken from "The History of Easton, Penn'a, from The Earliest Times to Present, 1739-1885" by Uzal W. Condit.



 A pen sketch of the site, from 1887, taken from William J. Heller's "Historic Easton from the Window of a Trolley-Car", published in 1911.

 
   

A postcard view of North Third Street and the steps leading up to Lafayette College, circa 1910. The Mohican building
is the second structure from the left. Neither the building that housed Case's Tire Company nor the archway at the bottom

of the stairs leading to Lafayette College have been built yet in this image.







The same view, taken from a bit further back, just south of Spring Garden Street looking north, taken last year.
The Mohican building is just to the right of the archway.