Walpack Center Historic District at Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area
Walpack Center was a small community within Walpack Township, a municipality founded in 1731 that still exists despite having a current population of fourteen. It is the oldest municipality within New Jersey’s Sussex County. Like the neighboring Millbrook Village, Walpack Center was in decline by the early 1900s. Factory jobs began luring people to the city, and larger farms were putting the small family farms out of business. Automobiles made it easy for residents to pack up and move to more populated areas.
The buildings now standing on Main Street in Walpack Center were built between 1850 and 1950, and every one of them except for the school house and fire station is owned by the National Park Service. How this came to be is an interesting story. After major floods on the Delaware River following back-to-back hurricanes in 1955, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed building a dam to control future flooding. The dam was to be called the Tocks Island Dam, and when completed, most of the area now within Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area would be covered by a lake. In 1967, the federal government began buying the land that would soon be underwater, using the doctrine of eminent domain to do so. Some of the newly acquired buildings were torn down, those deemed culturally significant were moved to higher ground, and others were left in place simply because the government never got around to doing anything about them (many became occupied by squatters).
There was a lot of opposition to the dam project by 1970. The Environmental Movement was in full swing and the Vietnam War was taking up much of the country’s budget. Given the circumstances, in 1975 the Tocks Island Dam project was cancelled, and the National Park Service found itself in possession of 70,000 acres of recently purchased land and hundreds of abandoned buildings. Everything became part of Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, a park that had been created by Congress in 1965 so that the National Park Service could manage all the soon-to-be fun activities on the new lake.
The buildings on Main Street in Walpack Center were actually above the maximum pool level of the proposed lake, which is why they are still standing today in their original positions. The National Park Service has since managed to lease a few, such as the Rosenkrans House to the Walpack Historical Society. Another is used to house park employees. Still, most sit empty. Regardless of ownership, the buildings here are in much better shape than the ones at Millbrook Village.
The Walpack Historical Society offers tours of some of the buildings once a month from May through September. For a schedule, see the National Park Service’s official Calendar web page for Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Enter WALPACK CENTER in the By Keyword search area to limit results. You can also get information about events on the Walpack Historical Society’s web page.
See the following web pages here on National Park Planner for information on the buildings at Walpack Center:
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Last updated on August 2, 2024
