Defunct Race Tracks Etc.

[jeff of pa]

http://www.thevintageracer.com/articles/gone_but_not_forgotten2.htm

is this Schoentown's Anthracite Raceway ?

 

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[soopacee]

good luck getting permission, or so im told


a retired state cop owns that land.....i hear he isnt too nice of a fella, and doesnt want people near there




there are a TON of defunct race tracks......a guy i work with knows many, huge race fan

 

[jeff of pa]

good luck getting permission, or so im told


a retired state cop owns that land.....i hear he isnt too nice of a fella, and doesnt want people near there




there are a TON of defunct race tracks......a guy i work with knows many, huge race fan

Yes I was told by a couple others
he does not even want to discuss
anyone entering the property,
& gets Irate when even asked
if you can walk in and look

& even at the above link it says many have been arrested.

however I have a hunch.
& plan a different non-confrontational approach
to getting him to hear me out at least.

Maybe he's just tired of people
sneaking on or knocking at his door.

I won't try till Spring though.

 

[soopacee]

good luck getting permission, or so im told


a retired state cop owns that land.....i hear he isnt too nice of a fella, and doesnt want people near there




there are a TON of defunct race tracks......a guy i work with knows many, huge race fan

Yes I was told by a couple others
he does not even want to discuss
anyone entering the property,
& gets Irate when even asked
if you can walk in and look

& even at the above link it says many have been arrested.

however I have a hunch.
& plan a different non-confrontational approach
to getting him to hear me out at least.

Maybe he's just tired of people
sneaking on or knocking at his door.

I won't try till Spring though.

well i hope all goes well.....everything is still standing in its original spots too....concession stands etc....

shouldnt be hard to find the hot spots

 

[deepskyal]

Here's one with an overlay that someone else is checking out. You can see the old oval overlaid on google earth and the concession stands would have been in the woods. I think the old map is from the early 1920's.

It's all part of an old fairgrounds, some new housing plans around it....

That's what sucks about a lot of the old race tracks around here. Flat, level, cleared land...let's build a housing plan...

Wish I had been around before some of em were paved over.

Al

 

[steveinphilly]

Yes I was told by a couple others
he does not even want to discuss
anyone entering the property,
& gets Irate when even asked
if you can walk in and look

& even at the above link it says many have been arrested.

however I have a hunch.
& plan a different non-confrontational approach
to getting him to hear me out at least.

Maybe he's just tired of people
sneaking on or knocking at his door.

I won't try till Spring though.

I just found this message while searching for info on the track. Did you ever get there to walk around?

In the late 1970s when I was a kid, I walked there a couple times with my grandmother or with my dad, who grew up a half-mile away. The track and the infield were still dried crusted dirt then, like you might see at the bottom of a dry lake bed. My dad told me he thought it had closed because a car went off the track and killed someone in the stands, but I can't find anything about that online. I am surprised to find that it had only closed a couple years earlier. Just south of there is a small pond that my dad said everyone called Priesty's Lake because at least in the 1950s when he would go there, it had been owned by a priest.

Anyway, in the late 1980s/early 1990s I went with my cousin who was maybe about 10 (and I was 20) to find the track. We started walking across the path that comes out from Kuper Drive when we heard someone yelling at us from the house up the hill. He told us to stay where we were and then walked down to us. Even though we were a college kid and a 10-year-old, he told us that it was private property and that he would have us arrested if we didn't get off the land. We said we just wanted to see Priesty's and the racetrack. He asked how we knew about those and we told him our dads had grown up there. He asked our name, and we told him. He said something like, "Oh, I know your grandfather. Well, you better get off the land because it's private property." Then he watched us until we left. We told our grandfather and he told us it was that retired state trooper and started muttering about what a jerk that guy was. I thought maybe it was a personal beef between them, but it sounds like that guy was a jerk to everyone!

Anyway, now that I know the name of the track, I have been doing some interesting reading about it and showing it to my dad. If anyone has any pictures of the track more recently or any stories about it, I'd love to hear more. Thanks!

 

[jeff of pa]

No I never made it out, But seems to me it would be a waste of Time from all I've been Told.

all My Old Photo albums have Disappeared.
They were loaned to My Aunt who Recently Died.
There may be Photos in it from The Races , But So far the only Thing I got is Her Memories
which I Just got Done reading. I'm Still waiting on response on The albums

 

[jeff of pa]

I Don't know the Reason for its Closure,
But Big Diamond Raceway Replaced it

 

[jeff of pa]

Schoentown's Raceway








.........

 

[NHBandit]

Good group of folks.. https://www.facebook.com/groups/395558190576993/

 

[steveinphilly]

Thanks, jeff of pa. In your last picture, where the letters ING of the word SEATING are, if you look at the current Google Maps satellite view, it looks like there might be some structures standing still. Is that where they had some? It's hard to see other structures from the satellite view except above the word PIT in your photos and that looks like a wall.

Thanks, NHBandit--some good photos there.

 

[jeff of pa]

Thanks, jeff of pa. In your last picture, where the letters ING of the word SEATING are, if you look at the current Google Maps satellite view, it looks like there might be some structures standing still. Is that where they had some? It's hard to see other structures from the satellite view except above the word PIT in your photos and that looks like a wall.

Thanks, NHBandit--some good photos there.

I don't remember if there was a Wall back behind the Pit or Not.

But on the other, I Believe I remember a Concession Stand up Behind The seating in that General Area.
There may also have been an Announcement Stand back there on top.

The Flag Stand, If Memory Serves Was Front and Center,
But May have been slightly to the Left Of center.
Hard to Remember because Back then I attended 3 Dirt tracks


Gold Mine
Schoentown
& Big Diamond

 

[chatterbait]

My town had one.Its a park now.It used to be a NASCAR sanctioned track.

 

[Hsimmons75]

In my hometown (Chewton, PA), we had a horse track in the early 1900's. Here's an excerpt from a local paper. "In the early 1900s, there was a race track behind the current location of the Chewton Volunteer Fire Department station. It was considered the best horse-racing track in the county and attracted people from surrounding areas. It ceased operation about the time World War I started."

 

[jeff of pa]

That would Place it here ?

Looks like a faint sign of Track Here

5/7/1939









http://data.cei.psu.edu/pennpilot/e..._photos_jpg_800/lawrence_050739_apg_45_63.zip

 

[Hsimmons75]

May be. I'm going to try to find more info from that era when I have a chance. And thanks for posting that link. It's great. I've been trying to find early aerial photos for a while now.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[jeff of pa]

try these three all 1939

links should center on these areas



http://data.cei.psu.edu/pennpilot/e..._photos_jpg_800/lawrence_050739_apg_45_65.zip


http://data.cei.psu.edu/pennpilot/e..._photos_jpg_800/lawrence_050739_apg_45_63.zip


http://data.cei.psu.edu/pennpilot/e..._photos_jpg_800/lawrence_050739_apg_45_64.zip


if they Don't open. Go direct through Penn Pilot & try the 1937 - 1942 Era links

Penn Pilot Photo Centers

 

[Hsimmons75]

Thank you, I had figured it out just prior to your post. Also found some very early topo maps that provided building sites.