Historical information was obtained from an article in the Lackawanna Historical Society Bulletin authored by Bernard McGurl, Dunmore, a member of the University of Scranton faculty.

     A structure at 801 Church Street, Jessup, was built in 1854 as a hotel by the Lackawanna Railroad. Since those days it has undergone improvement and transformation. This structure was converted in 1887 to a church and used for that purpose by St. James Roman Catholic Church Parish until 1940, when a new church was erected in the 500 block of that street.

     The hotel and railroad was part of a dream of Judge William Jessup who had high hopes of turning the place into a mining metropolis and railroad center.

On September 19, 1854, Judge Jessup, as president of the newly formed Lackawanna Railroad, signed an agreement with a contracting firm to build a railroad from a point near Greenville (now the Nay Aug section of Dunmore) to Meredith, which was what is now known as Childs in Carbondale Township. The railroad was to cover 16 miles. Each mile was to cost $28,000. The Lackawanna Railroad became operational by September 1855.

Main Street Circa 1890

     But in 1857, the company found itself in financial difficulty. The railroad rolling stock and lumber from the company's structures, which were dismantled were sold. Only the hotel and several houses near it remained to await the restoration of mining operations a few years later.

     The government of Mexico had invested $125,000 in the Lackawanna Railroad and Gen. Antonio Santa Anna of Mexico had contemplated establishment of a Mexican colony at Jessup.

Main Street Circa 1933

Gen. Santa Anna was the harsh victor over the American settlers in the Battle of the Alamo. President of Mexico on several occassions, Santa Anna last occupied the position from 1853 to 1855, at the time the Lackawanna came into existence.      St. James Parish was a mission of St. Patrick's Parish in Olyphant and masses were celebrated in a Jessup Schoolhouse.

     Rev. Edward J. Melley, second pastor of St. Patrick's built the first St. James Church, using the foundation and much of the material of an ediface said to have been erected by Santa Anna, who planned to form a Mexican colony in Jessup after his forced retirement following the massacre of the defenders of the Alamo.

     Why was not the colony successful? We do not have the answer but we have visions of a defeated and humiliated Mexican clutching his sombrero as he hightailed it through the Moosic Mountains, pursued by a band of early Irish settlers, using their muskets as clubs. Santa Anna may have captured the Alamo, but he wasn't about to become King of the Hill in Jessup.

     All that remains of Judge Jessup's shattered dream are a few buildings, now modernized, and some street names.

     On July25, 1962 petition was made to the courts to change the name of the Borough Winton to the Borough of Jessup.