Eagles Mere

History

Eagles Mere was laid out in 1877 and incorporated in 1899. The Eagles Mere Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. Eagles Mere's name literally means "the eagle's lake", the word mere being a poetic synonym of "lake". Civil engineer Embley S. Chase came in 1886 to oversee its development as a resort town and laid the ground work. He participated in establishing its street plan, water sports carnival, ice toboggan slide, and trail system. He helped organize the borough, design its water and sewer works, electrify it, and plot the bottom of the lake. He helped design the narrow gauge railroad that once connected it to Sonestown. Among the five large resort hotels serving the area from the 1880s to 1940s was the Forest Inn, opened in 1902. Its guests included General George C. Marshall and theater director Alvina Krause. Lucy McCammon (a faculty member at nearby Bloomsburg State) and Miss Krause (her longtime companion) leased the Inn's Eagles Mere Playhouse in 1945 and ran it for twenty years; it featured performers such as Patricia Neal, Jimmy Gheen, Charlton Heston, Jennifer Jones, Paula Prentiss, and Richard Benjamin. That troupe is gone, but in 1993 the David A. Dewire Community Center was the site of a nationally recognized summer drama workshop.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of , of which is land and (8.44%) is water.

Race & ethnicity

Largest nearby schools

• Sullivan Co El Sch
  Elementary · Laporte · 329 students · 13.2:1 ratio
• Sullivan Co JSHS
  High · Laporte · 287 students · 11:1 ratio