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<p>It&#8217;s a sunny, warm morning and Charley Davis is sitting in her father&#8217;s lap in the colorful kids&#8217; section of the Marian Sutherland Kirby Library, pushing a plastic hot dog into a fake bun, then whacking a small plastic bottle with a plastic fork.</p><p>&#8220;We love Wednesdays,&#8221; Vincent Davis said, beaming, as he and other parents with toddlers waited for the start of the weekly Story Time program for ages 2 and 3, held each Wednesday in September. &#8220;We had an early lunch, then we came here, and after this we&#8217;ll go to the park.&#8221;</p><p>In a few minutes, Children&#8217;s Program Director Laura Keller, the youngsters and their parents and grandparents will leave the colorful room full of books, kid-sized furniture and a plastic kitchen complete with faux wieners, popcorn and cake slices. They&#8217;ll head down the hall to the community room, where Keller will read &#8220;Today I Feel Silly&#8221; by Jamie Lee Curtis.</p><p>And yes, it&#8217;s that Jamie Lee, of the 1978 slasher flick &#8220;Halloween,&#8221; though this is strictly an upbeat kids&#8217; book about the many moods a young person can feel on any given day for many reasons. The moral: &#8220;Moods are just something that happen each day.&#8221;</p><p>Keller mixes readings with a few simple song games. She knows almost everyone by first name on sight, and plays off the cheery faces and antsy antics of her charges for about 30 minutes. It is just one one of many community programs offered by the library in a community with fuzzy boundaries and a firm reputation.</p><p>&#8220;Mountain Top,&#8221; residents and visitors alike will tell you regardless of where you meet them, is just a beautiful place to live and raise a family.</p><p><strong>Way station</strong></p><p>&#8220;Mountain Top,&#8221; population 17,480, is not an incorporated entity, though it is a &#8220;Census Designated Place.&#8221; To most who drive through, it surely appears to be the proverbial &#8220;miracle mile,&#8221; a long, straight stretch of State Route 309 peppered with a wide array of businesses.</p><p>It is a place where you can eat at King&#8217;s (Italian), Chalet (American) or Leaf and Ladle (predictably, salads and soups), to name a few. You won&#8217;t find a hospital but you will find plenty of medical facilities. There&#8217;s no Home Depot, but there is a family hardware store. There are no shopping malls but plenty of specialty shops. If you need it, odds are you can find it.</p><p>Delineating Mountain Top geographically has long been a matter of taste. The book &#8220;Images of America, Mountain Top,&#8221; offers an expansive definition favored by many residents: Fairview, Wright, Dorrance, Slocum and Rice townships, as well as Nuangola borough.</p><p>In its early days it was a high point, literally, on the journey between Luzerne County&#8217;s two largest cities: Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton. A few lumber entrepreneurs came to the area for profit, and Lake Nuangola drew some of wealthy people as a resort, but it was more a way station than a destination.</p><p>Remnants of the Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton Railway remain, most notably the entrance to a tunnel through Penobscot Mountain. The engineering marvel known as the Ashley Plains carried coal out of Wyoming Valley via steep track lines guiding rail cars hoisted uphill by cables to Mountain Top.</p><p>But the place was too beautiful to remain the domain of hearty settlers and lumberjacks, and villages started cropping up. William Albert became the first postmaster at what is now Albert&#8217;s Corners, a log schoolhouse was built in 1840, and Wright Township sprang into existence in 1851, later to subdivide into Fairview, Slocum and Rice townships as well.</p><p>While the bulk of Mountain Top remains sylvan and bucolic &#8212; one Floridian visiting the library gushed as she asked to take a picture of trees outside the lobby&#8217;s expansive window &#8212; the place never really stopped growing.</p><p><strong>Symbol of substance</strong></p><p>At the busy corner of Route 309 and Church Street, that growth recently was marked by a rare rite. While the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton has shrunk for decades, few places have shown the decline more acutely than Luzerne County, where roughly half the churches have been closed since the start of the millennium.</p><p>St. Jude, located on South Mountain Boulevard, is an emphatic exception.</p><p>Founded in 1953, the parish grew so much they built a new, spacious church, which was dedicated Sept. 17 with pomp and ceremony. At the service, Bishop Joseph Bambera conceded he could not remember a church dedication in his tenure as a diocesan priest, ordained in 1983.</p><p>Once outside, as many chatted and sauntered to a reception in the school gym behind the church, the lure of Mountain Top became almost palpable in their words.</p><p>Lucia Harkenreader had moved to Wright Township from Pittsburgh via Wilkes-Barre and found the place welcoming and more relaxing than the busier, denser denizens of prior homes.</p><p>Suzanne Modrovsky had come a good bit farther to get to Wright Township, migrating from Iowa years ago because of her husband&#8217;s job.</p><p>&#8220;We love the small-town, community feeling,&#8221; she said.</p><p>In fact, she loved it so much she suggested her sister, Theresa Kline, leave the Hawkeye State behind as well.</p><p>She did.</p><p>Allison Ross, of Fairview Township, visited the church after the dedication and stood outside the doors beaming with her son Alex, 10, and daughter Elliana, 7, gushing about how wonderful Mountain Top is for raising a family with the amenities of larger cities but the feel of a small town.</p><p>Alex summed it up. &#8220;You&#8217;re not alone.&#8221;</p><p>Heading into the reception, held in a building named after parish founder the Rev. Edward Nolan, Monsignor John Jordan credited Nolan&#8217;s foresight in building a school near the church.</p><p>&#8220;He knew that you needed a school to draw people here,&#8221; said Jordan, an assistant pastor at St. Jude 45 years ago. &#8220;That&#8217;s what drew the corporate CEOs here.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Business and leisure</strong></p><p>Two events arguably reshaped Mountain Top the most: the 1952 establishment of Crestwood Industrial park by the Committee of 100 &#8212; a predecessor of the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry &#8212; and the flooding of the Wyoming Valley in 1972 by Hurricane Agnes.</p><p>The former brought corporations like Eberhardt Faber, the pencil company, and electronics giant RCA to town. The latter brought a rush of flood victims from the valley. They found both room for business expansion and ample forest for recreation.</p><p>Growth spurred many leisure additions. The Grove Theater, which opened in 1934 and drew top talent, including Buster Keaton and Kirk Douglas, had been closed since 1959 but was reborn when the Nuangola Lake Association and Nuangola Fire Company bought it in 2001, ultimately bringing live performances back to the stage.</p><p>The most recent recreation opportunity might be the new Black Diamond trailhead for the D&amp;L Trail, a mostly converted railroad bed that runs from Wright Township to Jim Thorpe in Carbon County.</p><p>Lifelong resident Dick Hughes, 56, had just finished a seven-mile run and recalled the rapid growth post-flood.</p><p>&#8220;All along Kirby Avenue, there were no houses at all. After the flood, houses sprang up everywhere,&#8221; he said.</p><p>Mountain Top &#8220;has a great sense of community,&#8221; the Fairview Township resident added. He recounted how his kids would spend hours at the Kirby Library and the Wright Township Park.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s safe, it&#8217;s got good schools, and the trail is a great addition.&#8221;</p><p>A short distance away, on the other side of 309, dusk settles on the expansive Wright Township Municipal Park, hardly a soul in sight despite the ample options offered with a large, wooded playground, tennis courts, baseball diamonds, a street hockey rink and other amenities.</p><p>Taylor Deloatch unstraps her daughter Arayah from the car seat, and the 2-year-old silently rushes about the playground, fearlessly climbing the steep steps many times her height to the top of an aluminum sliding board.</p><p>&#8220;She has two brothers,&#8221; Taylor said, smiling. &#8220;She&#8217;s not afraid of anything.&#8221;</p><p>With the attention span of her age, Arayah races from sliding board to swings to straddling a little squirrel-shaped contraption that rocks back and forth, to a pig shape, and off to another slide.</p><p>Not a problem. With all that Mountain Top provides, there&#8217;s little chance she&#8217;ll run out of options before bedtime.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Children’s Program Director Laura Keller reads to children during story time at the Marian Sutherland Kirby Library on Wednesday morning in Mountain Top. (Aimee Dilger | Times Leader)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117mountaintop2-3.jpg</photo0><caption0>Children’s Program Director Laura Keller reads to children during story time at the Marian Sutherland Kirby Library on Wednesday morning in Mountain Top. (Aimee Dilger | Times Leader)</caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117mountaintop3-3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Vincent Davis holds his daughter, Charley, 3, during story time at the library. (Aimee Dilger | Times Leader)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117mountaintop3-3.jpg</photo1><caption1>Vincent Davis holds his daughter, Charley, 3, during story time at the library. (Aimee Dilger | Times Leader)</caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117mountaintop4-3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Children dance at the library during story time. (Aimee Dilger | Times Leader)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117mountaintop4-3.jpg</photo2><caption2>Children dance at the library during story time. (Aimee Dilger | Times Leader)</caption2><photoCredit2></photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117mountaintop10-3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Friends Jack Lee, Dick Hughes and Ed Zulkoski run Tuesday along the D&L Trail, a mostly converted railroad bed that runs from Wright Township in Luzerne County to Jim Thorpe in Carbon County. (Sean McKeag | Times Leader)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117mountaintop10-3.jpg</photo3><caption3>Friends Jack Lee, Dick Hughes and Ed Zulkoski run Tuesday along the D&L Trail, a mostly converted railroad bed that runs from Wright Township in Luzerne County to Jim Thorpe in Carbon County. (Sean McKeag | Times Leader)</caption3><photoCredit3></photoCredit3></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117mountaintop20-3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Ariyah Sunshyne, 2, plays in the Wright Township Recreation Park in Mountain Top on Tuesday. (Sean McKeag | Times Leader)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo4>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117mountaintop20-3.jpg</photo4><caption4>Ariyah Sunshyne, 2, plays in the Wright Township Recreation Park in Mountain Top on Tuesday. (Sean McKeag | Times Leader)</caption4><photoCredit4></photoCredit4></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117OurTownMtTop_1RGB-3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Lucia Harkenreader, of Wright Township, talks about living in the Mountain Top area. (Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo5>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117OurTownMtTop_1RGB-3.jpg</photo5><caption5>Lucia Harkenreader, of Wright Township, talks about living in the Mountain Top area. (Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader)</caption5><photoCredit5></photoCredit5></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117OurTownMtTop_2-RGB-3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Sisters Suzanne Modrovsky, left, and Theresa Kline, both of Wright Township, share a hug as they talk about living in  Mountain Top. (Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo6>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117OurTownMtTop_2-RGB-3.jpg</photo6><caption6>Sisters Suzanne Modrovsky, left, and Theresa Kline, both of Wright Township, share a hug as they talk about living in  Mountain Top. (Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader)</caption6><photoCredit6></photoCredit6></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117OurTownMtTop_3-RGB-3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Allison Ross, right, of Fairview Township, and her children -- Alex, 10, and Elliana, 7 -- discuss how much they enjoy living in the Mountain Top area. (Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo7>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117OurTownMtTop_3-RGB-3.jpg</photo7><caption7>Allison Ross, right, of Fairview Township, and her children -- Alex, 10, and Elliana, 7 -- discuss how much they enjoy living in the Mountain Top area. (Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader)</caption7><photoCredit7></photoCredit7></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_Buster-Keaton-2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Buster Keaton</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo8>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_Buster-Keaton-2.jpg</photo8><caption8>Buster Keaton</caption8><photoCredit8></photoCredit8></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_mountain-top-10-01-17-3.jpg">
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<div class="neCaption">Mandy Mulligan, left, holds her baby, Ella, 9 months, while her daughter, Alanna 3, sings the hello song at the Marian Sutherland Kirby Library in Mountain Top. At right, Alexis Clark holds her daughter, Alaina, 3. The library held its Story Time program on Wednesdays in September. (Aimee Dilger | Times Leader)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo10>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_TTL100117mountaintop1-3.jpg</photo10><caption10>Mandy Mulligan, left, holds her baby, Ella, 9 months, while her daughter, Alanna 3, sings the hello song at the Marian Sutherland Kirby Library in Mountain Top. At right, Alexis Clark holds her daughter, Alaina, 3. The library held its Story Time program on Wednesdays in September. (Aimee Dilger | Times Leader)</caption10><photoCredit10></photoCredit10></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta></subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p>Throughout the year, the Times Leader is looking at life in two dozen Luzerne County communities in a feature called &#8220;Hometowns.&#8221; The series is running in alphabetical order in print and on our website at <a href="https://www.timesleader.com/news/local/675558/timesleader.com/tag/hometowns" target="_blank">www.timesleader.com/tag/hometowns</a>. Today: Mountain Top communities. Next up: Nanticoke, Oct. 29.</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Luzerne County hometowns: Mountain Top, the in-between that became its own