The Lehigh and Early Sayre

The Lehigh and Early Sayre. . , The Victorian-era, Queen Ann architectural style Sayre Passenger Station, built in 1881 for the Lehigh Valley Railroad, was adjacent to the very ornate three-story brick Seneca Division Office Building, constructed in 1876. Image No. 1 shows the two buildings with the Sayre railroad yards in the foreground. While the Passenger Station survives and today is the museum of the Sayre Historical Society, the Division Office (Image No. 2) was demolished in 1946. During W.W. II, it was used as the headquarters for the famous Sayre Canteen where volunteers from the community served 621,000 members of the military who were transported on troop trains stopping at the Sayre Passenger Station of the LVRR. , Sayre's earliest development was along North and South Thomas Avenue on the East Side of Sayre (Image No. 3) and the two blocks of homes further toward the Susquehanna River. Accordingly, this made East Side the oldest part of Sayre outside of Milltown. All the first businesses and hotels were along Thomas Avenue. Soon Sayre's expansion and growth was on the opposite side of the tracks along the Desmond Street area and beyond. , An essential service which developed on East Side in 1881 was the Sayre Water Company (Image No. 4) with its facilities located on the western bank of the Susquehanna River. Howard Elmer, president of the water company, had the foresight to establish the company and to extend constantly the company's water lines. Piped, domestic water made building lots in the hamlet of Sayre attractive to prospective new residents, thus assisting in Sayre becoming a boomtown. , Sayre's Milltown predated Sayre by nearly 100 years. Its history dates to 1783 with the building of a gristmill along Shepard Creek in Milltown. Altogether, nine mills operated on that creek from Milltown to Factoryville (East Waverly). All were powered by water wheels turned by the rapidly moving water formed by dams and millraces along the creek. The first gristmill was sold in 1788 and became John Shepard's Mill seen in Image No. 5. For several decades Milltown was a center for industry and trade. In addition to various mills, the community included a school and schoolmaster, physician, tanner, shoemaker, blacksmith, deerskin leather dresser, distillery, post office, and cemetery. , West Sayre on the old Milltown Road between Athens and Milltown grew apart from but with Sayre. Image No. 6 shows South Keystone Avenue near Lincoln Street in the early 1900s. Service by the Waverly, Sayre and Athens Trolley tied it to Sayre's downtown when needed. Otherwise, it was a community within itself. At one time a variety of businesses provided all the essentials including a pharmacy. A constable provided policing, a fire station gave fire protection, and the Fourth Ward School and College Hill School educated children to grade eight. A corner church and Substation No. 1 of the Sayre Post Office completed the community., (For the rest of the story visit the Sayre Historical Society Museum.).