Jim Thorpe Gets Ready to Celebrate Halloween

Jim Thorpe, - The Friends of Historic Race Street will illuminate exquisitely carved pumpkins on Friday, Oct. 26 at 11:30 p.m. to make this particular midnight not quite so dreary. For as the clock in the courthouse tower strikes 12, Edgar Allen Poe, as portrayed by Race Street resident and literary historian Edward Moran, will visit the Rex house for a midnight reading of The Raven and excerpts from The Bells.

   The Rex House at 29 Race Street is home to Three Mountains Gallery and acclaimed artist David Watkins Price. The gallery will be open to the public from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 27 and Sunday, Oct. 28. for a showing of prints from the artist's recently released eBook Voices of the Hollow Maze. Glass art jewelry by Jayne Persico will also be displayed and available for purchase.

  With drawings, etchings and 19^th century images, Voices of the Hollow Maze, by David Watkins Price, is an elegy for Mauch Chunk, a town that is no more. Published as an eBook by Amazon.com, it tells the story of a young printmaker, who buying a house at the bottom of a dark valley discovers it to be haunted. The haunting takes the form of voices heard in the house after the printmaker falls down a tiny stair that climbs to the attic, the night his friends play with the Ouija Board.

  An old lady from the historical society suggests he write the words down. "Writing words down is an offering of some kind," she says, "an offering to things unseen." Writing the words down, the printmaker is no longer afraid and a town lost in the past is reborn as a diamond place, a place people come, after they've experienced the "cosmic terror."

   Price's Voices of the Hollow Maze was inspired not only by his experiences in his Stone Row home but also by the 3 a.m. rolling 32 years ago of a 500 pound granite ball from atop the Edward Rex monument in the Mauch Chunk Cemetery and its half-mile descent to Race Street, where the family had lived for decades.

For more information, call 267-934-9393 or visit http://www.facebook.com/JimThorpeHistoricRaceStreet

 Advance reservations required for Edgar Allen Poe's visit to the Rex House, 29 Race Street, on Friday, Oct. 26. Refreshments will be served. Tickets: $5 donation. 

Three Mountains Gallery, 29 Race Street, will be open to the public for a showing of prints and etchings by artist David Watkins Price, author of Voices of the Hollow Maze.

Voices of the Hollow Maze is available online at Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Voices-The-Hollow-Maze-ebook/dp/B009CICQ58/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350407473&sr=8-1&keywords=voices+of+the+hollow+maze

While on historic Race Street, be sure to check out St. Mark's Episcopal Church as well as the unique businesses on the most beautiful street in the Poconos.

Selena Mazmanian of 13^th Moon Creations, 31 Race Street, is launching her Remembering Mauch Chunk line of artisanal soaps reminiscent of the town's rich history. They include Victoria with milk, roses, wine and silk, Molly Maguires beer soap, Switchback oatmeal, milk and honey soap with activated charcoal, and Caf Noir chocolate coffee soap. Coming soon...Millionaire's Row with champagne and strawberries. For more information, visit www.13thMoonCreations.com

The last tours of the season of historic St. Mark's Episcopal Church, 21 Race Street, will be held from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 27 and 28. Listed on the National Historic Register, St. Mark's Church features beautiful Gothic architecture and Tiffany windows. Be sure to ask your tour guide about the ghost of Mary Packer Cummings and the spot where the Civil War widow fainted at the exact moment her husband was killed in action. Donation: $5 per person. For more information, visit http://www.stmarkandjohn.org