Alvan Markle and Highacres

Alvan Markle (1861-1931) and his wife, Mary D. Markle (1868-1945) bought their "Conyngham Pass Property" from the Lehigh Coal and Land Company in 1915. They commissioned a noted architect, John Russell Pope, to design their thirty-two room home which was built in 1924. To guard against forest fires, a novel technique was used to construct its thick fieldstone walls with poured-in-place concrete. They named their estate "Highacres". The home is presently Penn State Hazleton's Administration Building.

Alvan Markle was instrumental in the installation of the nation's sixth electric power plant in Hazleton in 1883. In 1886 he became President of the Markle Banking and Trust company, Hazleton's First Bank, serving for forty-three years during which he provided funding for many worthy local enterprises. In 1892, when there were no autos nor any public transportation, he linked more than seventeen isolated colliery villages to Hazleton with electric trolley service and created Hazle Park, a forty-acre wooded, public "People's Playground", that contained a lake and extensive facilities for recreation. He devised the protected-third-rail power supply system and built the Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton Railroad to link our city to the county seat in 1903. In 1910, he commissioned the construction of the Markle Banking and Trust Company building, Hazleton's most prominent structure and Penn State Hazleton's first home. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1913, he organized a syndicate to provide Hazleton with telephone service and became President of the Lehigh Telephone Company which served the entire Lehigh Valley. He was Vice President and a Director of the Jeddo Highland Coal Company and President of the Hazleton Manufacturing Company.

In public service during world war one, Alvan Markle served as Chairman of the Luzerne County Public Safety Committee and was a director of the Pennsylvania Council on National Defense. He headed Liberty Loan drives and was appointed by the Commissioners of Luzerne County collector of taxes for Hazleton, serving without compensation. He was Chairman of the Joint United Mine Workers and Anthracite Operators Committee from 1909 to 1924, who resolved that he "presided over the conferences between operators and miners with infinite patience, exemplary fairness, and distinguished ability". He became a director of the Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania State Chambers of Commerce in 1916 and was appointed Special Assistant to the Postmaster General by President Harding.

Alvan Markle, and his sons, had the vision to see Hazleton's needs, the ability to finance worthy projects, and the leadership that inspired civic progress.

In 1948, Alvan Markle Jr. (1889-1975) saw the limitations which bound Penn State Hazleton, which was established in 1934 and was outgrowing its downtown location. He envisioned its potential at Highlands, and encouraged his brother, Eckley B. C. Markle (1894-1961) to give sixty acres to the Hazleton Educational Council for Penn State Hazleton and to sell on generous terms six more acres with the buildings and gardens. In 1969, their brother, Donald Markle (1892-1976), gave his adjoining thirty-one acre estate, Norwinds, to Penn State University for one dollar, plus related expenses. In 1998, Hazel R. Markle (1908-1999), Eckley's widow, gave seven acres near Council Crest for one dollar. Also, at that time their four children established the Alvan Markle Jr. and Gladys Jones Markle Scholarship. More recently, the heirs of Alvan Markle's uncle, Steven D. Engle, gave an additional twenty-seven acres to Penn State.