History & local legend
Glen Onoko, near present-day Jim Thorpe in Carbon County, became a destination for nineteenth-century travelers arriving on the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Its waterfalls came with a tragic story: a young Native American woman, forbidden to marry the man she loved, climbed above the falls and jumped to her death.
The legend was part of the attraction. The state park's interpretive sign traces it to a railroad tourism agent who invented a romantic history for the scenery. Visitors could explore the ravine, admire the falls from a viewing platform, dance, or stay at the forty-seven-room Hotel Wahnetah. The hotel burned in 1911, and the railroad station burned in 1917. The resort disappeared, but the name and the story remained attached to the glen.
