In our effort to create a 1920's Prohibition style atmosphere at the Summit, we have endeavored to bring back some of the style and flare of that era. Women were now able to vote and started to frequent "juice joints". The Jazz Age, Homebrew, Flappers and Moonshine were all the rage in the 20's and "Tea Rooms" operated as illegal speakeasies.

Radio and Talking Pictures became major sources of news and entertainment during the 20's, uniting the country as never before. Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean. Luxury rail travel was at it's peak, and the automobile gained popularity, as the United States Interstate Highway System started to develop.

The stories of that era and the history of the Summit Tea Room, have been most entertaining. None of the "Tea Room Tales"

would have been told if the Delaware Lackawanna & Western Railroad (DL&W) had not relocated their main line railroad tracks in 1915.

In 1915, the DL&W Railroad completed The Summit Cutoff, a monumental engineering feat from Great Bend to Clarks Summit, PA. The DL&W then gave the old railroad bed built in 1851 to the State of Pennsylvania for use as a public highway (U.S. 11). As a result of these two massive excavations, The Summit Tea Room was built on a huge manmade cliff with great views, where these immense construction projects converge.

After Congress passeed the 18th Ammendment (Prohibition Laws) over the presidential veto of Woodrow Wilson in 1918, Jack Hallick built the Summit Tea Room on this cliff to serve the 3,000 to 4,000 men working on the new highway U.S. 11.

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The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad
The name or term The Summit, in our case, refers to the fact that the Summit Tea Room is located a very short distance from the highest point on the original Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad (1350 ft.)

The DL&W Railroad operated a first class passenger railway, offering luxury Pullman Car Services on The Phoebe Snow, The Lackawanna Limited and other high-speed luxury trains from New York City (Hoboken, NJ) to Buffalo, NY and onward to Chicago. The busy railroad carried hundreds of thousands of regular passengers and large amounts of newly arrived immigrants to Chicago, where some would change trains for other western destinations.

From 1912 thru 1915, the DL&W built a new much larger railroad bed called the Summit Cutoff, from Clarks Summit to Great Bend, PA, as the old line built in 1851 (now U.S. 11) was too steep and narrow to handle all the traffic flow.

The Summit Cutoff was created as construction crews removed over 450,000 railcars of rock and material with huge rail steam shovels from 1912 thru 1915. To the rear of the Summit Tea Room, at the bottom of the Summit Cutoff lies the DL&W tracks, still operational and busy today as part of the Canadian Pacific Rail System.

This mammoth construction project also included The Tunkhannock Viaduct, the largest concrete bridge in the world. Finished at a cost of $12,000,000 in 1915 and still in use, The Tunkhannock Viaduct is located 18 miles south of the Summit on U.S. 11, in Nichoson, PA.

"Although the DL&W 'the Route of Phoebe Snow,' and its successor Erie-Lackawanna Railroad passed from the scene more than 30 years ago the 'Summit Cutoff' and its monumental viaducts still stand today as testaments to creative engineering applied to a natural, geographical pathway."

-Quote from The Northeast Geographical Society.

During the 20's, the Summit Tea Room operated as a roadhouse, restaurant and speakeasy. Local folklore has it that besides all the partying, drinking and gambling, many other illegal activities also took place at the Summit Tea Room.

As the 20's roared, bootleggers and other criminal ganges who eventually took over the illegal booze trade gained wealth and power. By 1927, most Americans were disgusted with all the corruption and violence and demanded that the government do something. In response, the FBI started to hunt down these violent gangs, earning them their nickname "G Men".

In New York City, "The Castellammare War" was raging between Joe "The Boss" Masseria and Salvator "The Boss of Bosses" Maranzano, for control of the New York City's illegal rackets. The bloodshed and bodies were drawing the attention of New York U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Dewey and the FBI. In an effort to relieve the pressure from law enforcement and stem the violence, Charlie "Lucky" Luciano and his henchmen decided to "bump off" both of The Mustache Petes. Luciano and other gangsters then formed "The Commission", composed of the five New York crime families and the Chicago outfit. "The Commission" laid down rules and regulations concerning gangland violence, soon becoming the feared and unquestioned ruling body of organized crime.

In November of 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected on the "New Deal" platform to put the country back to work, clean up the corruption and to repeal the 18th Ammendment. Prohibition had been a failure, spawning more crime and violence than this country has ever seen before or since. The Noble Experiment finally ended in December 1933 and the country again went wet.

In essence, the Summit Tea Room was a product of its time. While it did operate illegally during the Prohibition era, nonetheless, it became one of the first legal liquor licenses issued by the state of Pennsylvania after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.

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