Throwing money into a hole

ARCHBALD, Pa. -- The world's largest pothole has fallen on hard times.

Once a tourist magnet, Archbald Pothole State Park in northeastern Pennsylvania now attracts litterbugs, men looking for sex and the occasional geologist drawn by the sheer size of this naturally occurring hole in the ground.

Can this pothole be saved? Officials are betting taxpayer dollars it can.

State lawmakers have agreed to spend several hundred thousand dollars on a plan by state Rep. Ed Staback to install at least two soccer fields, a basketball court, a tennis court, a walking trail, a playground, roads and parking areas.

And borough officials are trying to rid the park of its unsavory reputation. Plainclothes police recently arrested 29 men for lewd behavior.

But people still can't seem to help but toss things into the hole, from bottles and paper bags to a parking meter, a park bench and a "Wet Floor" cone. When the trash accumulates, park rangers make their way down the smooth sandstone and shale walls and haul up the garbage.

Deep depression

The Archbald pothole is a bowl-shaped depression, 38 feet deep and 42 feet wide, that was gouged out by a glacier during the last Ice Age between 11,000 and 30,000 years ago.

It is considered too dangerous to let people climb in. Instead, it is surrounded by a chain-link fence with a concrete viewing platform.

The state tried once before to spruce up the pothole. Five years ago, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources spent $175,000 on a facelift that included new paving, landscaping and garbage containers. But the littering and lewd behavior has persisted.

Doug Kirby sees the problem as one of marketing. To truly take advantage of its pothole, Archbald must think creatively, said Kirby, co-author of "The New Roadside America," a guide to wacky tourist attractions.

Think Miss Pothole. Or billboards along the turnpike proclaiming: "You are now 50 miles away from the world's largest pothole."

Archbald, a town of 6,200 in a mountain valley five miles from Scranton, about 135 miles north of Philadelphia, and 125 miles west of New York City, has long claimed ownership of the world's largest glacial pothole. Staback calls it the "largest of its kind on the planet" and a "natural wonder."

In 1964 it was designated a state park. It is not the only park built around a hole in the ground. Others include Potholes State Park in Washington state, Glacial Potholes in Massachusetts and Potholes Provincial Park in Ontario, not to be confused with Sooke Potholes Provincial Park in British Columbia.

The Archbald pothole once drew tourists by the thousands. Discovered in 1883 by a coal miner, it became a regional attraction when the mine owner organized sightseeing excursions via the company railroad. The hole continued to attract tourists well into the 20th century.

"People used to pack picnic lunches and go out there," said Joe Daley, 73, an Archbald councilman and former mayor.

Now, it gets maybe 30 or 40 visitors a day.

Staback hopes to restore the pothole to its former glory.

"I've often said that if I was a tourist visiting the city of Scranton, and somebody told me the largest glacial pothole was located five miles up the road, if nothing else my curiosity would get the best of me," he said.