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A couple vintage photos of the old Roosevelt Inn point to a once popular spot in a once sparse and quiet section of highway between Hawley Borough and Lake Wallenpaupack.
The restaurant and bar was located along the “old” US Route 6, the Roosevelt Highway, so-named for the late President Theodore Roosevelt.
Today (2011) the section of road where the restaurant sat is considered a short-cut between the busy commercial strip on US 6 starting near Wayne Bank and Route 590 coming out just past John’s General Store. It is called Roosevelt Drive, now Township Road 405.
“Old Route 6” automotive garage and a house are the only buildings on this stretch today, on the side towards the hill in back. Across from these stood the Roosevelt Inn, its front doors facing this former piece of main highway. Woods were in back, heading to the Wallenpaupack Creek.
One of the pictures show a 1920’s-era car and gents dressed from that period in front. There is a gas pump, and a sign along the roof, “Roosevelt Inn.”
The second photo appears to have been taken later and is from an old postcard. It has a different sign, and the windows have new awnings; the exterior has been remodeled somewhat.
A few phone calls around quickly learned some of the history.
Mitzi Clintock, now of Smith Hill, said her grandparents, Ed and Kathryn Murphy, and her parents, John and Violet Cummings, started the restaurant in 1923. “I was just a baby,” she said.
In those days there were hardly any other restaurants around, unless you went down into Hawley. The once very rural area was about to take a huge leap, with the advent of the great hydroelectric dam under construction by Pennsylvania Power & Light Inc. (PP&L). This was just a short distance from the restaurant.
“The restaurant did well with workers from the dam,” she said. Before the dam was completed and the lake filled in 1926, the highway by the Roosevelt Inn headed down about 400 feet north of the old waterfall where the dam was put. This was old Wilsonville, where there was a bridge spanning the Wallenpaupack River, between the coming dam and present day Mangan Cove.
Today you can still see what appears to be the old road heading towards the lake, now very overgrown and with a barricade put up by PP&L. She remembered that the road was dirt.
Phoenix Utility, PP&L’s subsidiary charged with building the dam, constructed a new steel truss bridge to replace it, just ahead of the dam.
Mitzi called it “rickity.”
This crossed what became a dry creek bed and over the dam’s huge flow line just north of John’s General Store, between the present day bridge and the dam. It came out on the Pike side about where the old Gulf station sat and the Fireplace Shop.
The restaurant was open only in the summer, for the first year, she said. The place was enlarged, and her family at first lived in one end. Later they moved into a house built across the road. They also owned the garage.
Mitzi stated that when Prohibition came to an end in 1933, her folks were the first in Wayne County to get a beer license. She was a child, but she still remembers the celebration. A lot of people were there to see the keg tapped, she said.
They had a bar downstairs and a grove in the back, where customers were served outside in the summer. They also had banquets there and catered food.
Mitzi married Larry Clintock. She was a music teacher at Wallenpauapck Area High School, where she retired.
After Mitzi inherited the business, in 1947 she sold it to Bartel Strasser. She said she didn’t know that a big change was coming to the area, with the re-routing of Route 6.
Bartel’s son, Bart Strasser, said that in 1955, the state closed the steel bridge and put in a new span immediately downstream, re-aligning Route 6. This put the main highway in back of the restaurant.
There was now an entrance off Route 6 and the original entrance, off the “old” Route 6. They had an entrance upstairs and another downstairs, in back.
Bart’s mother Elizabeth was the cook. They had German-style food. He said it was very popular. His father also owned the Hawley Inn (at Church Street and Main Avenue) at the same time.
The Strassers also had banquets, and they also had trout ponds and a walkway to get to them down in the old river bed where the bridge was. In 1956, Bart Strasser opened a gas station across the road, which today is run by his sons, Gary and Mark.
During the 50’s, Bart was also busy at work helping to rebuild the PP&L flow line tube, replacing the original wood line with one of steel.
The restaurant was eventually leased to Claude Angelis- his son Ferdy later opened Ferdy’s Restaurant just up the road towards Hawley, where the Dime Bank is today.
Another man by the name of McQue rain it for awhile. The Roosevelt Inn by this time was known as the mark Twain. Sometime in the 1970’s Bart estimated, after the Strassers had sold it, the place burned down.
Tom Sheridan of Hawley said he used to eat there, and enjoyed many a time going there to play chess with Bart Strasser.
The re-aligning of Route 6 signaled a new era was ahead. Times were changing.
Donal Coutts of Paupack, who is 83, said he remembered seeing the Roosevelt Inn from his school bus on his way to Hawley High School, through the period of World War II.
“It was pretty much all woods,” Coutts said, traveling from the area of the Tafton dike all the way into Hawley in the 1940’s. The Roosevelt Inn was one of the few businesses or homes along the way.
Coutts fondly remembers paddling a canoe with his brothers around Lake Wallenapauck, when there were no motor boats like today other than maybe a fishing boat with a small motor. Most of the few homes around the lake were rustic fishing cabins.
In about 1950, he said, construction really took off. Many homes were built; cabins became vacation homes. Trees were felled and more businesses sprang up.
Today numerous fine restaurants dot Route 6 and other roads in the Hawley Lake Region. One of the early entrepreneurs who had a vision for the new era, beginning with the creation of the Big Lake, were the founders of the Roosevelt Inn. This business, and a few others here and there, were trail blazers for the busy tourist economy we have today.
A couple vintage photos of the old Roosevelt Inn point to a once popular spot in a once sparse and quiet section of highway between Hawley Borough and Lake Wallenpaupack.
The restaurant and bar was located along the “old” US Route 6, the Roosevelt Highway, so-named for the late President Theodore Roosevelt.
Today (2011) the section of road where the restaurant sat is considered a short-cut between the busy commercial strip on US 6 starting near Wayne Bank and Route 590 coming out just past John’s General Store. It is called Roosevelt Drive, now Township Road 405.
“Old Route 6” automotive garage and a house are the only buildings on this stretch today, on the side towards the hill in back. Across from these stood the Roosevelt Inn, its front doors facing this former piece of main highway. Woods were in back, heading to the Wallenpaupack Creek.
One of the pictures show a 1920’s-era car and gents dressed from that period in front. There is a gas pump, and a sign along the roof, “Roosevelt Inn.”
The second photo appears to have been taken later and is from an old postcard. It has a different sign, and the windows have new awnings; the exterior has been remodeled somewhat.
A few phone calls around quickly learned some of the history.
Mitzi Clintock, now of Smith Hill, said her grandparents, Ed and Kathryn Murphy, and her parents, John and Violet Cummings, started the restaurant in 1923. “I was just a baby,” she said.
In those days there were hardly any other restaurants around, unless you went down into Hawley. The once very rural area was about to take a huge leap, with the advent of the great hydroelectric dam under construction by Pennsylvania Power & Light Inc. (PP&L). This was just a short distance from the restaurant.
“The restaurant did well with workers from the dam,” she said. Before the dam was completed and the lake filled in 1926, the highway by the Roosevelt Inn headed down about 400 feet north of the old waterfall where the dam was put. This was old Wilsonville, where there was a bridge spanning the Wallenpaupack River, between the coming dam and present day Mangan Cove.
Today you can still see what appears to be the old road heading towards the lake, now very overgrown and with a barricade put up by PP&L. She remembered that the road was dirt.
Phoenix Utility, PP&L’s subsidiary charged with building the dam, constructed a new steel truss bridge to replace it, just ahead of the dam.
Mitzi called it “rickity.”
This crossed what became a dry creek bed and over the dam’s huge flow line just north of John’s General Store, between the present day bridge and the dam. It came out on the Pike side about where the old Gulf station sat and the Fireplace Shop.
The restaurant was open only in the summer, for the first year, she said. The place was enlarged, and her family at first lived in one end. Later they moved into a house built across the road. They also owned the garage.
Mitzi stated that when Prohibition came to an end in 1933, her folks were the first in Wayne County to get a beer license. She was a child, but she still remembers the celebration. A lot of people were there to see the keg tapped, she said.
They had a bar downstairs and a grove in the back, where customers were served outside in the summer. They also had banquets there and catered food.
Mitzi married Larry Clintock. She was a music teacher at Wallenpauapck Area High School, where she retired.
After Mitzi inherited the business, in 1947 she sold it to Bartel Strasser. She said she didn’t know that a big change was coming to the area, with the re-routing of Route 6.
Bartel’s son, Bart Strasser, said that in 1955, the state closed the steel bridge and put in a new span immediately downstream, re-aligning Route 6. This put the main highway in back of the restaurant.
There was now an entrance off Route 6 and the original entrance, off the “old” Route 6. They had an entrance upstairs and another downstairs, in back.
Bart’s mother Elizabeth was the cook. They had German-style food. He said it was very popular. His father also owned the Hawley Inn (at Church Street and Main Avenue) at the same time.
The Strassers also had banquets, and they also had trout ponds and a walkway to get to them down in the old river bed where the bridge was. In 1956, Bart Strasser opened a gas station across the road, which today is run by his sons, Gary and Mark.
During the 50’s, Bart was also busy at work helping to rebuild the PP&L flow line tube, replacing the original wood line with one of steel.
The restaurant was eventually leased to Claude Angelis- his son Ferdy later opened Ferdy’s Restaurant just up the road towards Hawley, where the Dime Bank is today.
Another man by the name of McQue rain it for awhile. The Roosevelt Inn by this time was known as the mark Twain. Sometime in the 1970’s Bart estimated, after the Strassers had sold it, the place burned down.
Tom Sheridan of Hawley said he used to eat there, and enjoyed many a time going there to play chess with Bart Strasser.
The re-aligning of Route 6 signaled a new era was ahead. Times were changing.
Donal Coutts of Paupack, who is 83, said he remembered seeing the Roosevelt Inn from his school bus on his way to Hawley High School, through the period of World War II.
“It was pretty much all woods,” Coutts said, traveling from the area of the Tafton dike all the way into Hawley in the 1940’s. The Roosevelt Inn was one of the few businesses or homes along the way.
Coutts fondly remembers paddling a canoe with his brothers around Lake Wallenapauck, when there were no motor boats like today other than maybe a fishing boat with a small motor. Most of the few homes around the lake were rustic fishing cabins.
In about 1950, he said, construction really took off. Many homes were built; cabins became vacation homes. Trees were felled and more businesses sprang up.
Today numerous fine restaurants dot Route 6 and other roads in the Hawley Lake Region. One of the early entrepreneurs who had a vision for the new era, beginning with the creation of the Big Lake, were the founders of the Roosevelt Inn. This business, and a few others here and there, were trail blazers for the busy tourist economy we have today.
