Walpack, New Jersey Ghost Town
Tocks Island Dam

On the way back to Western New York, a quick abandoned stop that has long been on my bucket list. Though I cannot even recall how or when I learned of an abandoned observatory near the grounds of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, a landmark of passing on most trips out of the New York City area. Once I had even stopped in the ranger’s office asking around it, certain they have some knowledge of existence. They did not.

But with more intel, I was able to locate it myself. To my surprise the observatory was in a ghost town in the woods of New Jersey… and it had quite the interesting backstory.

Back in the 1950’s, after Hurricanes Connie and Diane overflowed the riverbanks and took the lives of 100 townsfolk, Congress put the Army Corps of Engineers to work on a plan to create a dam. But this plan also meant the creation of a 40 mile reservoir which would displace 600 property owners, some of whom who had roots on the land for centuries. Twenty turbulent years later the fate of the land still uncertain, the plan was scrapped (Read more about it at my source here.)

When I arrived I saw that the area was a mix of empty and in use, the winter months revealing far more than I expected. And most were easily traversed and accessed, though in serious disrepair. This is what I saw…