Lehigh Valley History, A Thing Of Wonder Gone

The former greenhouse at the current Trexler Park was the pride of Harry and Mary Trexler. The General was very specific in his will about its future;

I, Harry C. Trexler declare this to be my last Will and Testament: ......into the Treasury of the City of Allentown, for the perpetual maintenance of said Park, (Trexler) as well as the Greenhouse thereon located. This bequest shall include all the plants and other contents of said Greenhouse (1929)

Although nobody in charge of Allentown remembers, the greenhouse was a thing of wonder. Full of banana trees and other tropical plants, it was a true escape from winter for all visitors. Its demolition was a project that the Wildlands Conservancy would have loved. The park director at the time touted all the money in maintenance to be saved. He then took that projected money and planted the southeast section of the park along Cedar Creek in natural species. Last year Allentown Park Department cut down all those trees planted at the time, and we now have nothing to show for our loss of the greenhouse.

Flash ahead twenty years, and South Whitehall Township will demolish another thing of wonder, if not stopped. The Wildlands Conservancy paid an engineering firm to compromise their credibility with an absurd report, on how expensive it would be to keep Wehr's Dam. I will not let the dam go quietly.

reprinted from November of 2015

UPDATE JANUARY 6, 2021: When South Whitehall voters decided by referendum to keep their iconic dam,  it never occurred to them that five years later it would still be in jeopardy.  This threat is from a combination of a conspiring politician,  an agenda driven organization and a compromised press.

Tori Morgan, perpetual president of the South Whitehall Commissioners, has been on board with the Wildlands Conservancy about demolishing Wehr's Dam since 2013.  When the Wildlands created the township's park master plan, they had already erased the dam off the drawing board.  When Morgan devised the referendum,  she never expected it to pass.  She thought that it would provide political cover for demolishing the popular structure. 

After the referendum passed,  the Wildlands Conservancy got busy working with their associates in the Harrisburg Bureau of This and That, finding more faults with the dam, to inflate its repair cost beyond the amount approved by the referendum.

Although I have documented the correspondence between the Wildlands and Harrisburg,  the Morning Call editor refuses to cover the story.