It's the nature of businesses and service organizations to come and go: they come into being, they struggle and/or thrive, and eventually they disappear (like everything else in the universe). Looking at the history of Freeland since its beginnings, there have been an amazing number of businesses of various kinds. Some years, Freeland had its own city directory published, while in other years its information was incorporated into directories for the nearby city of Hazleton (as with the phone books today). There were also occasional business listings published in various sources, including other directories, maps and atlases. Listings from a few such sources are reproduced on these pages. The directory listings tend to be fairly complete, and the map listings tend to be only partial listings.

If you're interested in businesses and occupations, please also check the "People" link, as those lists of individuals also include information on occupations and on those instances where a home address was also the location of the family business. Freelanders will find many familiar names in these lists, in addition to some that have been gone since before current memory.

If anybody reading this has any pre-1970 phone books, city directories, or other publications containing business listings from Freeland, would you please let me know? I'd be interested in borrowing them in order to take notes or to copy them so that I could add more information to these files. Meanwhile, additions and corrections would be very welcome; please send e-mail. Thanks. Enjoy the lists.

BUSINESSES LISTED IN CITY DIRECTORIES:

Businesses in 1882-1884 city directory

Businesses in 1884-1886 city directory

Businesses in 1886-1888 city directory

Businesses in nearby towns in 1886-1888 city directory

Businesses listed in 1895 Barry's city directory

Businesses listed in 1897 city directory

Businesses listed in 1900-1901 Pruden's Wilkes-Barre - Scranton Business Directory (includes Freeland)

Business advertisements in early city directories

Businesses listed in 1921-1922 city directory

A casual and preliminary list of 1940s-1970s businesses, to which I'll add names from more recent years

Business index from 1873 maps of Freehold (later renamed Freeland) and Foster Township from the Atlas of Luzerne County

Business index from 1895 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Freeland

Business index from 1900 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Freeland

Business index from 1905 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Freeland

Business index from 1912 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Freeland

Business index from 1923 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Freeland

Business index from 1929 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Freeland

Business index from 1946 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Freeland

As noted earlier, businesses come and go. One of the projects I'm working on is a possible booklet about businesses in Freeland over the course of its history. I've been building a file, collecting notes on what businesses have been in each building (each building that's been listed as a business establishment) over the last 125 years or so. And in the course of doing that, I've come to realize how many stories are out there, stories of how these businesses and Freeland's commercial and industrial picture began and grew and changed over time, up to the present as seen in Freeland's current businesses and the newest commercial redevelopment project at Centre and South streets. It would be nice to save some of these stories and share them. So much of Freeland's character over time has been determined by the nature of the social and commercial interactions provided through its businesses.

Taking my grandfather's business as an example, I've put together a short page just to show how a few items from a business's history can help to bring its story to life. If you can contribute any information about other Freeland businesses to this project, your help would be gratefully acknowledged and appreciated. Please send e-mail with any questions, comments or suggestions you might have. Thanks!