ChessieWriter

As we approach Valentine’s Day, I’m reminded of an unusual bit of history related to romance–the Love Rock at Eckley Miners’ Village.

Eckley, Pennsylvania is an open-air museum–a coal town from the 1800s that’s basically been frozen in time. Located near Hazleton, it is a destination for history buffs, school groups and those with family roots there. There are various events held at Eckley throughout the year. There’s a visitor center with a museum as well as a gift shop, and plans are in the works for a research center and renovation of one of the houses for overnight lodging.

And then there’s the village itself, its road lined by houses that were lived in by generations of miners, laborers, supervisors, and owners of the coal mine that was the sole economic driver of the town.

There’s a coal breaker, too, a large building where the coal would have been sorted and loaded into coal cars before being shipped out. But this coal breaker is a replica, built for a movie that was shot in Eckley in 1970, meant to be temporary and slowly falling apart.

And down at the far end of town is a large, flat rock. Its appearance is fairly unremarkable, given that the terrain around Eckley is dotted with rocks and boulders of all sizes. But this rock has a legend attached to it, according to a 1993 edition of the Hazleton Standard-Speaker. Below is a photo from that newspaper:

The reporter, Joe Falatko, wrote that the Eckley “love rock” had been restored to the village a few days previously. He continued, “the rock was the congregating place for many evenings of stories, laughs, songs and fun by the…young people of the town. It also served occasionally as the meeting spot for a brave beau from out of town courting an Eckley girl…”

I’ve been to Eckley dozens of times–part of my family lived there in the mid-1800s–but I’d never noticed the Love Rock. After finding the article about it last year, I just had to go and see if it was still there. It is:

I asked at Eckley’s visitor center if they knew about the Love Rock, and all that was known was what was in the 1993 article. Joe Falatko, the reporter, unfortunately passed away in 2020. His obituary notes that he was born and raised in Eckley, so he would have been a good source of information about local legends.

It’s touching to think of the large rock being a place where people used to gather for “stories, laughs, songs, and fun,” and romance. Maybe its legend will be revived someday, and once again couples will declare their love at the Eckley Love Rock.

As we approach Valentine’s Day, we’re lucky that Mr. Falatko wrote about Eckley’s Love Rock. Without his words, it may well have been forgotten.