Editing Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania (section)

===Coal mining and the LC&N canal===
{{Main|Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad}}
The town grew slowly in its first decade, then rapidly around 1818 grew larger as it became an anthracite [[coal]]-shipping center.  (The other large city with growing coal mining in the region was [[Scranton, Pennsylvania|Scranton]], with a population of over 140,000.) Mauch Chunk is on a [[Lehigh River]] west side (right bank) flat where Mahoning Creek enters and is a tributary of the [[Lehigh River]]. The river's left bank community of [[East Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania|East Mauch Chunk]], which has more of the houses of modern Jim Thorpe, was settled later to support the short-lived Beaver Creek Railroad, the mines which spawned it, and the logging industry. It came into greater growth when the [[Lehigh Valley Railroad]] in 1885 pushed up the valley on the river's east bank to oppose LC&N's effective transportation monopoly over the region, which extended across to northwest Wilkes-Barre at [[Pittston, Pennsylvania|Pittston]] on the [[Susquehanna River]]/[[Pennsylvania Canal]].