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About the Bear Creek Association
The Bear Creek Association is a community association of Borough residents, and is the heart of the Village. We celebrate our uniqueness with neighborliness, friendliness, and during the year enjoy several social opportunities together. We are responsible for the preservation and maintenance of our natural beauty, our sylvan setting, and our many assets. Presently our Association membership is approximately 115 families.
The Bear Creek Association is a voluntary community organization, managed by a Board of Governors, whose officers include the President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer. Standing Committees are Membership, Property, Recreation and Social. They are regulated by our Bylaws, copies of which are available to all members. Decisions made involve the preservation and maintenance of the dam, lake, clubhouse, and recreational facilities. All funds raised and dues collected are returned to the community. Approximately 90 members of the Association meet semi-annually, June and January, to conduct business. Membership is open to all Borough residents.
A Brief History of Bear Creek Village
The Borough of Bear Creek Village is a special place with a rich varied history. The Borough”s story is compelling enough, in fact, that a large part of the community has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places – our nation’s official list of sites and places which are important to the national heritage — as the Bear Creek Village National Historic District.
According to the National Register of Historic Places, the Bear Creek Village National Historic District derives its significance from several criteria:
First, the Village contains what is, in essence, an intact company town associated with the lumbering and ice industries. It also displays the evolution of summer resort development in the Pocono Mountain region of Pennsylvania.
The Village is significant for its association with entrepreneur Albert Lewis (1840-1923), who developed the lumbering industry, the ice industry, the company town, and seasonal resort activities at Bear Creek. Through his career, Lewis created business partnerships and arranged land deals that gave him the title of “Lumber and Ice King of Luzerne County”. Operating from his Bear Creek base, Albert Lewis’s influence extended throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania. He was a partner in the Glen Summit Hotel with the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and was instrumental in the founding of the lumbering and ice-producing towns of Noxen, Alderson, Stull, and Harvey’s Lake. Lewis is unique among many of his contemporaries because he chose to live and work in the company town he created, instead of joining the area’s other elite in downtown Wilkes-Barre.
Finally, the Village’s grouping of high style and vernacular buildings associated with two different aspects of the community’s history – its turn-of-the-century role as Albert Lewis’s proprietary village, and its role as a rustic mountain getaway for the well-to-do of the Wyoming Valley – invest it with historic architectural significance.
This summary, excerpted directly from the narrative sections of the Bear Creek Village National Register registration form, is intended to provide the citizens of the Borough of Bear Creek Village with an overview of their community’s rich history.
To learn more about membership in the Association see the Membership page.
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