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Sawmill Workers

Jamison City Hotel, 2000

Dorsey Hotel

What remains of the
tannery stack, 2001

Jamison City was named for Colonel BK. Jamison, a Philadelphian largely responsible for bringing the Bloomsburg & Sullivan Railroad to Jamison City. While the railroad was being built, he and two other entrepreneurs, A. L. Fritz and J. Corcoran, bought three farms north of the village of Central and laid them out into building lots. In 1889 the central Pennsylvania Lumber Company opened a large lumber mill at Jamison City, damming the East Branch Fishing Creek for the purpose of constructing a mill pond to hold the logs until the could be maneuvered into the sawmill. At one time the lumber mill sawed up 100,000 board feet of lumber per day. Colonel Corcoran opened a large tannery nearby in 1888 which he later sold to Thomas E. Proctor and which was later bought by the Elk Tanning Company. The lumber and tanning industries employed many men and the village grew rapidly. Many small stores, churches, hotels, and shops opened in town. The town's population grew to over 1,500 inhabitants.

Some of the residents of Jamison City hoped that the town's mountainous and forested location, its higher latitude, cooler nights, and many trout streams would attract summer tourists. In 1888 the Manor Rest Inn Company was formed to erect a summer resort on the hill above Jamison City. It opened in 1890, its name was changed soon after to The Proctor Inn, and it closed its doors in 1905. Local residents called it "The Big Onion" both because of its architectural design with large "onions" on its spires and also because of its wealthy clientele. E.William Mathers, who grew up in Jamison City and has spent most of his life there, explained that tourism and the lumbering and tanning industries just did not mix well. The tanning industry caused Jamison City to have quite an odor, as did the lumbering industries. Moreover, both industries caused the destruction of large tracts of the local forests and so much of its beauty was lost. Finally, the lumbermen especially were a somewhat rough crowd, not the sort of company tourists from Philadelphia expected to find on their summer resort vacations.

The major industries of the town, lumbering and tanning, depended on the surrounding forests. It did not take long to remove the available timber, however. Soon the forests could no longer support the industries, and without these, the town's population quickly dwindled. In 1912, the lumber mill closed down. The last carload of lumber, cut years before, was shipped out in 1914. The tannery lasted a bit longer, relying on existing stands of hemlock. Mr. Mathers recalls as a boy seeing very large hemlocks, the bark stripped for use in the tannery, laying on the forest floor rotting. The tanning industry changed, however, using man-made chemicals for the process. The tannery closed for good in 1925. The in 1926 the train track was pulled up all the way back to Bloomsburg.

Mr. Mathers owns the properties of the former Proctor Inn, the train station, and the general store once owned and operated by his father. He says the foundations of the inn are still up on the mountain above his home. The train station still stands, as does the general store. Jamison city is now home to about 16 families. The rest of the buildings, including the only church ever in Jamison City, are now hunting camps. Some of the smaller brick structures from the tannery still stand, and Mr. Mathers says he can still feel the remains of the train tracks as he cuts his grass. That is all that remains of this once vibrant and promising community.