Mountain Grove Campground was a site and resort on the Danville, Hazleton and Wilkes-Barre Railroad in Black Creek Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, in the United States.
[1][2] It existed for approximately 30 years[2] and was run by the Mountain Grove Camp Meeting Association.
[2] It was adjacent to the historical community of Mountain Grove, which had a population of 65 in 1880,[1] and was located on the Danville, Hazleton and Wilkes-Barre Railroad.
[2][3] The campground's elevation was more than 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level and it was situated in a wooded grove immediately east of McCauley Mountain and in close proximity to Scotch Valley.
Mountain Grove Campground was designed with a layout similar to a miniaturized version of Washington, D.C.
[1] According to a local atlas, Mountain Grove Campground was semicircular in shape, with avenues radiating out towards the sides.
When this area was filled up, more people would set up tents along the avenues that radiated outward from the camp.
Shoop, a businessman from Danville bought 28 acres of land on the site that would become the Mountain Grove Campground.
[2] He reported this purchase in a meeting held on June 20, 1872, in Columbia County with a group of Methodists, including several ministers.
Shoop intended to give the land to a local camp meeting organization once one existed.
A committee consisting of four pastors and five lay leaders was subsequently created for the camp meeting site.
[2] The Danville District's presiding elder, Reverend S. Barnes, went to the Central Pennsylvania Conference in 1872 to make a report on opening the Mountain Grove Campground.
He stated that the managers of the campground intended to "make it, perhaps, the best adapted and most attractive resort of its kind in all our Conference territory."
Major financial contributors to the campground included a Colonel Jackson from Berwick and the Low family from Lime Ridge.
Three more acres and a hotel were also added to the campground during this time, on land bought from George W. Klase.
In 1875, a special train started to run past the campground three times a week during the camp meeting season.
In 1884, the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Philadelphia and Reading Railway began selling special fair excursion tickets for the campground.
[2] This began with an advertisement written by John R. Rote, secretary of the Mountain Grove Camp Meeting Association, in the Columbia County Republican on July 9, 1891.
[1] The Mountain Grove Campground was affected relatively little by storms, as compared to other camp meeting sites in the area.
[1] Between the 1872 and 1873 camp meeting seasons, the cottages, also known as tents, in the Mountain Grove Campground were renovated.
In 1883, the boarding house was expanded and in 1885, a number of water pipes were renovated and some buildings were repaired and repainted.
[1] In the 1900, a final attempt to increase the attendance of the camp meetings at Mountain Grove Campground was made by the Board of Managers.
As well as general renovation, this included an addition of a building called the Preacher's Home, which was situated behind the auditorium.
By the mid-1890s, it was permitted for visitors to bring their own supplies, rent multiple tents, and decide whether to stay for one or two weeks.
A short branch line of the Danville, Hazleton, and Wilkes-Barre Railroad was then built to allow easier transport of visitors' baggage to the campground.
[1] Camp meetings at the Mountain Grove Campground began at 7:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night with a bell that summoned the attendees to a welcome sermon.
[1] The Mountain Grove Camp Meeting Association was formed after a decision by a nine-man committee.
High-ranking members of the Mountain Grove Camp Meeting Association during the 1870s included Presiding Elder Barnes, Reverend S. Creighton, and the businessmen and politicians B.G.