Eagles Mere Historic District

Eagles Mere is a resort community of cottages, boat houses and churches grouped around a spring-fed lake 2,100 feet above sea level in the Allegheny Mountains of Sullivan County. Development began in 1877 when lots south of the lake were sold, and the 1885 purchase of the lake by a syndicate led to the building of hotels and the Eagles Mere Railway. At its height, five large hotels could accommodate more than 1,100 guests, and the hotels employed about one thousand staff each summer. Only the cottages survive from that era. Many of the district's cottages are fine examples of the Shingle, Queen Anne and Craftsman styles, and the community is regarded as one of Pennsylvania's best preserved turn-of-the-century resort communities. Its lakeside covenants, which kept trees and construction back from the shoreline, are cited as an early conservation effort. The lake, beach and wooded shoreline remain largely unchanged.