Alvan Markle

Alvan Markle (August 29, 1861 – March 19, 1931) was an American banker, businessman, engineer, and inventor based in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. He was the son of George Bushar Markle (1827–1888), a rural carpenter and ingenious inventor who became a successful banker and coal operator.[1][2][3] Alvan was the brother of John Markle, who established the John and Mary Markle Foundation.[4] Alvan, his father, and his brothers were instrumental in making Hazleton a financial and industrial hub through their inventions and their initiative in establishing regional transportation systems, electric power, extraction technologies, as well as social and educational institutions.[5][6]

Alvan Markle
Born	(1861-08-29)August 29, 1861 Hazleton, Pennsylvania
Died	March 19, 1931(1931-03-19) (aged 69) Hazleton, Pennsylvania
Nationality	American
Occupation	Banker, businessman, engineer, and inventor
Known for	regional transportation systems, electric power, extraction technologies, electric third rail

Career

When his father became ill in 1879, Alvan Markle left Lafayette College at the age of 18 and joined his brothers in learning and managing the family businesses. In 1882, they collaborated with Thomas Edison to build the world's sixth urban power plant in Hazleton, marking the city as a pioneer in electric power.[7][8] Over the following decade Alvan Markle built the city's first electric public transportation system; by 1892 his trolley lines linked 17 isolated outlying colliery villages to the city and to 40-acre Hazle Park (set aside in 1861 by the Markle family), a notable public amenity with lake and picnic grounds that he developed as a popular amusement park.[9][10][11]

Markle Bank Building (now Hayden Tower at the Markle) in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, in 1923.

In 1899 he established an electric high speed rail line that linked the Hazleton area to the county seat of Wilkes-Barre, devising the revolutionary protected third rail system adopted nationwide by urban transportation systems and standard technology to this day.[12][13][14][15] From 1886 to 1929 he managed the family banking concern, buying out his brothers in 1892, and erecting the 11-story Markle Bank and Trust Company Building in Hazleton in 1910, designed by John Irwin Bright.[16] Constructed to be fireproof, this landmark structure acquired a prominent rooftop electric sign and a 6-story addition in 1923, and is a National Register of Historic Places site).[13][17] He was also instrumental in establishing telephone service in the region.

Corporations

Among the Corporations that Markle originated, organized and for which he acted as chairman of the board are the Markle Banking and Trust Co. from 1892, the Wilkes Barre and Hazleton Railroad Co. from 1902, the Lehigh Traction Company, the Hazleton Auto Bus Co., the Consolidated Telephone Co. from 1913, and the Lehigh Telephone Co. from 1924. He was also director and president of the Hazelton Manufacturing Company. He served as vice president and director of the Jeddo Highland Coal Co., and director of the Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey Power Co.[18]

Public Service

Markle was elected chairman of the joint United Mine Workers and Anthracite Operators Committee serving in that capacity from 1909 to 1925.[2][19][20] He served as director of United Charities of Hazleton from 1902, and director of the Pennsylvania State Chamber of Commerce from 1916. He was appointed Collector of Taxes for Hazleton and donated his commission to the Red Cross and served as special assistant to the Postmaster General for a dollar a year. During World War I he chaired Luzurne County's Public Safely Committee, the Pennsylvania Council of National Defense, and managed War Bond drives. He served on the Executive Committee of the Hazleton Public Library Association from 1902, an institution to which his brother John gave a distinguished Beaux Arts building in 1912.[21][22]

Personal life

321 Broad Street, where Markle resided for most of his career

In 1887, Markle married Mary Dryfoos (1869–1945), five of their children lived to adulthood: Emily (1888–1989), Alvan Jr. (1889–1975), Donald (1892–1977), Eckley (1894–1961), and John (1902–1986). Always eager to experiment, in 1898, Alvan acquired the first car seen in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and one of the first in the country.[23]

Homes

During much of his career Markle resided at 321 Broad Street, Hazleton, a large shingle-style frame structure built in 1887. This house became the home of Hazleton Elks, of which Markle was Exalted Ruler in 1891, when he moved 4 miles out of the city to his estate at Highacres in 1924.[24]

Markle began improvements at the 66-acre forested mountaintop estate at Conyngham Pass that he named "Highacres" in 1915. Desiring a fireproof residence, Markle devised with the structure's notable architect, John Russell Pope, revolutionary poured-in-place concrete walls faced and embedded with native fieldstones. The property included terraced gardens, greenhouses, a 6-car garage with apartments, other outbuildings, and a technologically innovative 32-room home.[25]

Family Legacy

Highacres, now the site of Penn State Hazleton

Highacres becomes Penn State Hazleton

Beyond the public infrastructure and corporate financing that enabled Hazleton to grow and modernize between the 1880s and the 1920s, the Markle family participation in the region remains visible in three notable structures: the Markle Bank Building (now Hayden Tower at the Markle), the Markle Memorial Library (1912; now Hazleton Public Library), and Highacres (1924; now Penn State Hazleton).

In 1948, Alvan Markle, Jr. was alerted to the needs of the newly established Hazelton Undergraduate Center of Penn State University an institution that had been hosted in its earliest days in the 1930s in the Markle Bank Building. Markle, Jr. saw the potential for an expansive campus at Highacres.[26]

He persuaded his brother Eckley Markle, a pioneering World War I aviator, to give Penn State Hazleton 60 acres on the Highacres site.[27][28] Six further acres with three buildings were sold by Eckley to Penn State on generous terms specifically for educational purposes.[29][30] In 1968, their brother Donald Markle increased the campus with the gift of his adjoining thirty-one acre estate "Norwinds."[31][32] In 1998, Eckley's widow Hazel R. Markle (1908–1969) gave six further mountaintop acres to Penn State.[33]

More recently, heirs of Markle's uncle, Stephen Decatur Engle (1837–1921) who had collaborated with the Markle brothers on the Edison electrification project, gave a further 25 acres to the campus.[34][35] The Markle family gifts constitute 122 acres of the 148-acre campus.

See also

• Penn State Hazleton
• John Russell Pope
• Stephen Decatur Engle
• The John and Mary Markle Foundation
• The Markle Bank Building

References

1. "Alvan Markle, Sr.,". Philadelphia Bulletin. March 20, 1931.
2. "Coal Age: Devoted to Coal Mining and Coke Manufacture". 6. November 5, 1914. p. 391.
3. Novak, Michael (1975). The Guns of Lattimer. Basic Books. pp. 39–43.
4. "THE JOHN AND MARY R. MARKLE FOUNDATION RECORDS, 1884–(1960–1994)". Rockefeller Archive Center. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
5. Vicino, Thomas (2013). Suburban Crossroads: The Fight for Local Control of Immigration Policy. Lanhan: Lexington Books. pp. 42–44.
6. Krause, Arthur A. (1999). History of Hazleton and Area. Wilkes-Barre, PA: Self-published. pp. 231–32. ASIN B00069X2PK.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
7. Thomas Edison Papers. Rutgers University. pp. T.A. Edison to Stephen D. Engle November 1, 1883, Samuel Insull to Wm Rich, Nov. 16, 1883, G. B. Markle, Jr. to Thomas Edison, January 14, 1884 and Stephen D. Engle to T. Edison September 15, 1884.
8. Hughes, Thomas Parke (1983). Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 432.
9. Krause (1999), pp. 59, 198–99, 215, 272
10. Androckitis, Jr., Bill. "Hazle Park". NEPA Archive. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
11. Rohrbeck, Benson W. (1997). Hazleton's Trolleys. Rohrbeck/Traction. ASIN B0060Q7VHI.
12. "Edison Set Stage for Hazleton's Electric Rails". Hazleton Standard-Speaker. May 12, 1996. p. 27.
13. Guydish, Mark (March 2, 1997). "Hazleton's Aging Giant Struggles to Stand Tall: Northeastern Building History, Significance Begins to Slip Away". Times Leader. p. 1B.
14. US patent 698124, Alvan Markle, "CONTACT APPARATUS FOR ELECTRIC RAILWAYS.", published April 22, 1902
15. E. J. Quinby, Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton Railway (Fredon. N. J.: Model Craftsman Publishing Co., 1972), p. 9
16. "National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form: Markle Banking & Trust Company Building" (PDF). State of Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
17. "Markle Milestone: Downtown Landmark Turns 100". Hazleton Standard Speaker. October 22, 2010. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
18. "Alvan Markle, Sr., Died Early Today". Hazleton Plain Speaker. March 19, 1931.
19. "Coal Age". 21. March 23, 1922. p. 507.
20. "The Retail Coalman". 40 (1). p. 46.
21. "Alvan Markle". Hazleton Plain Speaker. March 19, 1931.
22. Baer, George Frederick (1916). Appel, William N. (ed.). Dedication of the John Markle Memorial Library. Addresses and Writings of George F. Baer. Nabu Press. pp. 309–313. ISBN 1175169420.
23. Krause (1999), p. 59
24. Krause (1999), pp. 80, 103
25. "PAGES FROM THE PAST High Society: Woman Recalls Days in Markle Mansion". Hazleton Standard-Speaker. November 6, 1991.
26. The Belles-Lettres Society and the Student Government Association of Penn State University (1964). Our Thirty Years: The History of the Hazleton Campus 1934–64. Hazleton, PA: The Pennsylvania State University, Hazleton Campus. OCLC 42187890.
27. Luzerne County Record Book: Book 1024, p. 336 (December 15, 1948); Book 1056, p. 20 (December 17, 1949); Book 1114, p. 150 (December 15, 1950); Book 1163, p. 170 (June 25, 1952); Book 1163, p. 171(June 25, 1952) ; Book 1165, p. 178 (July 18, 1952); Book 1188, p. 281 (December 15, 1952); Book 1224, p. 110 (December 31, 1953).
28. Eckley Brinton Coxe Markle papers, 1917–1919, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
29. Luzerne County Record Book: Book 1036, p. 538 (December 15, 1949); Book 1161, p. 67 (July 1, 1952); Book 1163, p. 167 (July 18, 1952)
30. Krause (1999), p. 112
31. Luzerne County Record Book 1641, p. 733
32. Michaels, Harold (December 7, 2013). "Changing from the Markles to Penn State". Penn State Collegian.
33. Luzerne County Record Book 2654, p. 922
34. Jackson, Kent (January 6, 2012). "25 Acres of Land Donated to Penn State Hazleton". Hazleton Standard-Speaker. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
35. Luzerne County Record Book 3011, P. 236490-96 (March 2, 2010); Book 3011, p. 236497-98; Book 3011, p. 236521-28 (Sept. 15. 2010); Book 3011, p.236532-38 (October 13, 2010); Book 3011, p. 236710-16; Book 3011, p. 236710-16 (December 14, 2012)