ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The Lenape Trail at the Little Lehigh Parkway's digital experience just got a permanent reinstallation, as plans for a re-created Lenape Village move forward with a potential grant of nearly $1 million.
- Lenape Trail in the Little Lehigh Parkway has a new permanent digital experience exhibit for visitors
- The 'Tour and Explore' exhibit lets those on the trail explore the experiences of Lenape and Native American people
- A grant of $963,000 anticipated by the Museum of Indian Culture will go toward expanding the Lenape Trail and re-create a Native American village in the near future
The "Tour and Explore" digital experience initially was introduced as a temporary exhibit by PBS39 education staff for the city's rededication ceremony of the trail last year.
New durable signs installed Tuesday with the City of Allentown Parks and Recreation Department aim to make the display a permanent part of the trail, Amber Emory of PBS39 said.
"When we saw how actively they were used, how well they were, like welcomed into the space, we decided that we were going to reprint and make them permanent."Amber Emory, PBS39
"When we saw how actively they were used, how well they were, like welcomed into the space, we decided that we were going to reprint and make them permanent," Emory said.
PBS39 and LehighValleyNews.com are both branches of the nonprofit Lehigh Valley Public Media.
All signs for the digital experience feature the character Molly Mabray of the Denali, a 10-year-old Alaskan indigenous girl from the PBS Kids program "Molly of Denali."
"You meet Molly at the front of the trail; she tells you that there's a digital adventurer coming up, and to scan the QR codes to inhabit some of the ways indigenous people see the world," Emory said.
Grant money to bring village expansion to life
The Museum of Indian Culture in Allentown, which operates the Lenape Trail, is anticipating federal grant funding of up to $963,000 that will go toward expanding the Lenape Trail site with a recreation of a Lenape Village.
Director of the Museum of Indian Culture Pat Rivera said the final official award from federal allocations has not yet been delivered, but the organization knows it is slotted for it and it is anticipated soon.
The requested amount of $963,000 would go to the creation of a Lenape Village, which the office of Rep. Susan Wild states would be used for the region’s first authentic recreation of a Lenape Village on the site of one of the most well-traveled routes of the Lenape people, dating back 12,500 years.
Rivera said the village will be able to take people back to how the Lenape lived before European settlement came and made Allentown what it is today.
"We're not able to tell that story within the museum because we only have a small place. But the story is not the museum necessarily, it's actually outside, and that's where the story will be told."Pat Rivera, director of the Museum of Indian Culture
"Our educators will be able to teach how this was and people kind of can envision basically how they lived," Rivera said.
"We're not able to tell that story within the museum because we only have a small place. But the story is not the museum necessarily, it's actually outside, and that's where the story will be told."
First Lenape Village destination
Rivera said the project seeks to be the first Lenape Village historic destination in Allentown, demonstrating documented Native American meeting places and sites alongside practices that existed at the time of early contact, to tell the story well beyond the Lehigh Valley.
Current plans are for it to include a wigwam, a longhouse, hunting and cooking stations and a Three Sisters Garden, along with various interactive educational programs and activities to take place on the site.
"Many people didn't know how much rich history Allentown itself had in regard to the original stewards, the Lenape people within this area," Rivera said.
Rivera said that if the final allocation for the project is received soon at the amount they expect, the project may be able to break ground by fall.
Additional projects planned such as program development at the completed site would require further fundraising of about $300,000, Rivera said.
As the project is developed, PBS plans to continue its partnership in the educational effort, and the Molly of Denali iconography will continue to play a part.
"As you know, the grant is flushed out in the future. We'll know what that partnership looks like," Emory said. "We do know that the 'Molly of Denali' character will stay involved with the trail as it grows."
Rededication affirming the city's support
A rededication ceremony held by the City of Allentown in May marked the first time the Delaware Nation flag was raised at City Hall, paired with a telling of local history and the planting of a Lenape tree.
Rivera said the city government and Mayor Matt Tuerk played a big part in the grant project and support for the museum's efforts.
"We couldn't do this without the support that we've had from Mayor Tuerk," Rivera said. "He's so in tune as far as bringing that invisible history, and those are cultural elements back to the forefront and he has really given us that platform in order to do it."
At the rededication, Tuerk said, "We have to continue to tell the stories so that they are not forgotten. When we dedicate the trail it dedicates us to being a welcoming community."
The Lenape people today belong to the Delaware Nation and other tribal governments throughout the United States. European settlement and later United States Indian removal policies forced most further west.
