A line almost a block long formed at the old junior high school as residents waited to board the Lehighton trolley tour Saturday afternoon.

Lifelong residents Ronald Rabenold and Kathy Long acted as guides for the tour, pointing out over 24 areas of historic interest around the borough's center."I learned all this history from listening to people like Arlene Ebbert," said Rabenold, a fifth-grade social studies teacher."I'm even old enough to remember when we did our school shopping here on First Street," he told the group.Passengers reminisced and shared their own childhood memories of the borough during the ride. Several of the residents recalled attending First Ward for their elementary school education."Back then you had to walk to school," Long said.As the trolley rode past the old fairgrounds, Rabenold spoke about his memories of parking cars for extra cash while the fair was in full swing."I made so much money on fair week parking cars in my grandmother's yard," he said as he pointed out a house across from what is now the middle school.Highlights of the tour included the All Saint's Episcopal Church on North Second Street, which had been gifted to the borough by Asa Packer's daughter, Mary Packer Cummings.First Street holds the most history, the guides said. The street was paved in 1913 and served as a "one-stop shopping center for the borough," Rabenold said.Long and Rabenold told passengers the history of the Lehighton fires, which took place December 1955 and cost 15 families their homes on the south end of First Street. Two of eight buildings were burned to the ground while the remaining six retained only pieces of their structure.In 1963, six stores including the 75-year-old Trexler House Hotel and several apartments were burned, leaving 21 people homeless.As the trolley rounded Eighth Street, Long pointed out what was once the Colonial Court Mansion, located catty-corner to the Grove and formerly owned by T.A. Snyder. The mansion was shipped here by rail in 1903 and burned to the ground in 1916. The Grove had been owned by Garrett Linderman, Packer's son-in-law. Lehighton celebrated the nation's 100th birthday in the Grove on 1876. Every church and school bell in town rang at sunrise during the celebration that ended with a parade through the borough.The Baer Silk Mill was constructed in 1898 and employed 260 locals before the Great Depression set in and cut down the textile business.As the trolley zipped passed the cemetery next to the old First Ward, Rabenold described the Gnaden Huetten Massacre that took place in 1755, where 11 Lehighton residents perished in the November attack.The guides also pointed out the Lehighton Fire Department on Third Street, which was built as a small, one-story wood-framed building behind the First Presbyterian Church. Eventually Lehigh Fire Company No. 1 needed to expand and constructed a three-story brick structure in 1893."It was very informative," passenger Sherry Everett said. "It brought up a lot of things I remembered from the past. I enjoyed it.""I think there's a lot of history in the area people don't know about. We had a world-famous artist who came from here. When the next generation comes along we could lose the history because they don't know about what's here. We have to let young people know what's here or they won't care about preserving it," Long said.