Nobody know Lehighton history like Lamont Ebbert and Gordon B. Ripkey, both former teachers and administrators in the Lehighton Area School District.

The two life-long residents of the borough have collaborated on a book highlighting Lehighton's history.That book, entitled "Images of America, Lehighton" is available at numerous locations in the community including Mallard Markets and Lehighton Hardware - just in time for the Christmas shopping season.The book was produced without any reenumeration for the duo."Neither one of us is making a cent," said Ebbert. "If there is a profit, it will go to Lehighton Memorial Library."The introduction of the book presents a brief written history of Lehighton.Ripkey noted that although the book is a pictorial, "there is so much history in the captions it's unbelievable."About 200 to 240 pictures are in the book. Ripkey noted another 100 or more were offered but had to be rejected because of the lack of space."The book is really not about us," Ripkey stressed. "We did this because there is no historical society. We both have a large postcard collection. We hope to generate more interest in local history."Ebbert agreed, stating that without such project, "all will be lost. We'd like to preserve these things for future generations.""Having been in education, we know there was a great deal of interest in local history," said Ripkey.He pointed out a lot of interesting tidbits about the borough:• He is an avid collector of Moxie items. Moxie is a beverage; a soda. He said, "At the turn of the century in the early 1900s, Moxie outsold Coca-Cola." One the locations where Moxie was bottled was in Lehighton.In fact, in the 1930s and '40s, Lehighton was the only place outside of Boston where Moxie bottling occurred. While no photos of Moxie are included, there is mention of it on the back cover.• Graver's Swimming Pool in Lehighton, which closed in the 1960s, was the largest concrete swimming pool in the state.• A world's record was set at the Lehighton Fair racetrack around 1921. It was by Indy-type cars around the dirt track. Unfortunately, the photo to accompany this fact was rejected by the book publisher.The world's record, incidentally, was 29 seconds for the half mile. The Lehighton dirt track was known to be one of the best in the world.Ripkey said 30,000 people were on hand to see the record set.• Ebbert pointed out that a caption under a photo of a baseball game between Lehighton and Mauch Chunk indicates 5,000 people attended."Baseball was big in Lehighton," he said. "Hugh Jennings played in Lehighton. He is now in the baseball Hall of Fame."Jennings was a Major League Baseball player and manager from 1891 to 1925.Another player with Lehighton was Bucky Harris, who played in 1917. He managed the Washington Senators Major League Baseball team and was the youngest manager to win a World Series in 1924.One of the photos in the book is the mural at the Lehighton American Legion Post done by artist Franz Kline.Ripkey said, "We agreed from our first meeting that it was to include something on Franz Kline, possibly the most famous person to come out of Lehighton."Some of Kline's artwork has sold for several million dollars.Ebbert gave special mention to Becky Finsel for her assistance in producing the book. "She was a tremendous help to us," he said. "We would have the book without her."He also praised the contributions of Gene Durigan. "He provided a lot of material to me years ago," Ebbert said.One other individual who did a lot of typing and provided a lot of material was Nicky Nothstein.The book is dedicated to the memory of the late Gregory Ebbert, son of Mr. and Mrs. Lamont Ebbert, and the late Russell F. Ripkey, who "had a great love for the history of Carbon County and amassed a large library on the subject."