Old Maps of Bethlehem, PA - Part 1: What Used To Be (Clearfield Village)

Like many people in Bethlehem after WWII, several of my family members lived in Clearfield Village. Not much information about this former housing development can be found online, but its 250 single-story homes were built to house those returning from war and starting families¹.

Formerly located south of Pembroke Rd and east of Bethlehem Drive, Clearfield Village had 50 5-unit residential buildings and a community center. All buildings were constructed of cinderblock². The homes had coal stoves and furnaces and an icebox³ (No refrigerators?! Talk about ‘essentials only’!).

To get a sense of the neighborhood I overlayed the Sanborn map of the neighborhood in Google Earth, and then drew the streets and buildings as they used to be. The result provides a good overview of the neighborhood.

Hint: Click on the buildings for addresses. 
This is helpful if you're curious where your relatives 
lived, since the streets are gone!

It's interesting that the streets in "the Village" (as the locals call it -- and several other housing developments) didn't line up with the streets in Freemansburg. You can tell where the city/borough line is located by looking at the ends of Tolstoy, Karoly, Kossuth, and Monroe Streets (all in Freemansburg). But why not make them connect? Simply because Clearfield Village was intended to be temporary?

Timeline
Clearfield Village was created as temporary housing and was demolished after some time, though I can’t find much information about the demolition (or when it was built, for that matter). I turned to the USGS’ awesome historical map site for a timeline. The faint red crosshairs in each map denote the location of Clearfield Village.

The 1939 Allentown map shows vacant land (under Freemansburg):

1939 Nazareth Map - USGS

That hashed red line is the city/borough boundary. Remember that for later!
Side note: did you know that Pembroke Rd used to be Alternate US-22?

The 1959 Allentown map shows Clearfield Village’s major streets:

1959 Nazareth Map - USGS

The 1964 Nazareth map only shows a few remaining roads (Bristol Rd, part of Nelson Rd, Spencer Rd, and most of Salem Rd). Also note that Missouri Ave (today called Bethlehem Dr) is missing, but was missing in some earlier maps as well.

1964 Nazareth Map - USGS

Sorry for the weird way the historic map is truncated... 

the rest of these do the same thing.

The 1992 Nazareth map shows the same layout, but with more industrial buildings moving in to the west:

1992 Nazareth Map - USGS

And by the 1999 Nazareth map, the entire area had been redeveloped, with Win Dr cutting through where Clearfield Village used to be.

1999 Nazareth Map - USGS

In 2018, nothing remains to give any indication of the vibrant neighborhood that used be there. Do you have pictures or stories of Clearfield Village or the neighborhood reunions? Let me know!

Sources

1. Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/280040098/
• “When veterans returned home after the war, he declared, Bethlehem faced another housing shortage, and Clearfield Village, a 250 unit project, was built.”
2. Sanborn Fire Insurance Map via Lehigh’s Beyond Steel project: http://gisweb2.cc.lehigh.edu/beyondsteel/
3. Klugh In America (genealogy report): http://www.klugh.com/pdf/butler-genealogy-report.pdf
• “During this time the family lived in low-cost G.I. housing ... that had coal stoves and furnaces, and an icebox in lieu of a refrigerator. Clearfield Village consisted of long concrete block single story row houses."

Additional Resources:

• Bethlehem Housing Authority – History Page: http://bha645.homestead.com/BHAhistory.html