Jim Thorpe, PA Shirts

For its first century and a quarter this town was Mauch Chunk, an anthracite port stacked against the walls of the Lehigh Gorge. In 1954 two boroughs merged and took a new name, honoring Jim Thorpe, one of the greatest athletes of his era, whose remains were brought here and rest in a memorial on the edge of town. What never changed is the geography: Victorian rowhouses climbing streets so steep they seem to lean on one another, church spires backed by sheer green ridges. The old economy left a marvel behind. Beginning in the late 1820s, a gravity railroad carried coal down from the mines, cars coasting on rails with no engine at all, and in its later years people paid to ride downhill for the thrill of it. It ran into the 1930s and helped inspire the roller coaster. Our Jim Thorpe design leans into that slope: a gravity car sailing down the switchback, rowhouses stepped along the hill beneath it, the gorge rising behind. As Jim Thorpe businesses join ShirtMap, they will be gathered here on this page.