Nicholson, PA

Nicholson is a Wyoming County borough in northeastern Pennsylvania, incorporated in 1875 and named for John Nicholson, a late-18th-century Pennsylvania comptroller general. The 2020 census counted 698 residents. Tunkhannock Creek runs through the borough, and the railroad valley gives the town a landmark far larger than its population: the Tunkhannock Creek Viaduct, also called the Nicholson Bridge. The borough’s streets and nearby countryside still follow the creek valley that made the railroad route possible.

Built between 1912 and 1915 for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, the concrete viaduct stretches 2,375 feet across the valley and rises 240 feet above Tunkhannock Creek. Ten semicircular arches carry Norfolk Southern freight trains today, and the bridge is recognized as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. Nicholson’s smaller local history has its own strange footnote: in July 1986, an escaped Bengal tiger drew national attention while it was hunted around the area. Between the great railroad bridge, the creek, and that unforgettable episode, Nicholson has a story people remember quickly.