Philipsburg, New Jersey, United States

🇺🇸 Phillipsburg is a town in Warren County, New Jersey, United States, across the Delaware River from Easton, Pennsylvania. The town is located along the Delaware River in western New Jersey, in the southern portion of Warren County, on the border with Pennsylvania, and the Delaware River, considered part of the Delaware Valley region and the eastern border of the Lehigh Valley region. The Norfolk Southern Railway's Lehigh Line, runs through Phillipsburg on its way cross river to Easton, Pennsylvania. The Belvidere Delaware Railroad was leased and later acquired by the Pennsylvania Railroad connecting the lower Poconos to Trenton, New Jersey and Philadelphia. Phillipsburg is located 19.3 miles (31.1 km) north-east of Allentown, 78.9 miles (127.0 km) north of Philadelphia, and 70.1 miles (112.8 km) west of New York City.

History The town grew from a sleepy agricultural village (in 1824), and was transformed into a transportation hub and shipping centre as the Delaware River terminus of the Morris Canal (1829–1924), with operations commencing in 1831, the first transportation infrastructure project (of several, each eventually) giving the community a direct connection 107 miles (172 km) to New York City. The Central Railroad of New Jersey would soon follow with a connection, but the community's growth (and for a long while, its importance) was that it reached the canal terminals of both the Delaware Canal and the Lehigh Canal by its cross-river cable ferry system to Easton, Pennsylvania. In 1853, the Lehigh Valley Railroad connected across the river with the CNJ and a passenger short line railroad, the Belvidere Delaware Railroad, as well as the Morris Canal, all within Phillipsburg. Rapid growth followed quickly.

Phillipsburg was incorporated as a town by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 8, 1861, from portions of Phillipsburg Township (now Lopatcong Township). The town was named for William Phillips, an early settler of the area.

Geography According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the town had a total area of 3.31 square miles (8.58 km²), including 3.19 square miles (8.26 km²) of land and 0.12 square miles (0.31 km²) of water (3.66%).

Unincorporated communities, localities and place names located partially or completely within the town include Andover Furnace, Delaware Park, Lopatcong Heights, Shirmers and Warren Heights.

Pohatcong Mountain is a ridge, approximately 6 miles (9.7 km) long, in the Appalachian Mountains that extends from Phillipsburg north-east approximately to Washington.

Phillipsburg borders the municipalities of Lopatcong Township and Pohatcong Township in Warren County; and both Easton, Pennsylvania, and Williams Township across the Delaware River in Northampton County, Pennsylvania.

Economy Industrial history Phillipsburg had historically benefited from being a major transportation hub, then manufacturing with the investments by Ingersoll Rand in 1903 by opening the first Ingersoll-Sergeant factory in Phillipsburg. Within a year it employed 1,000 people, reaching a peak of 5,000. The town is situated at the confluence of the Delaware and Lehigh rivers. Phillipsburg served as the western terminus of the Morris Canal for approximately 100 years from the 1830s to 1920s, which connected the city by water to the industrial and consumer centres of the New York City area, with connections westward via the Lehigh Canal and Delaware Canal across the Delaware. Long gone is the era of canal shipping and many of the important freight railways that served the area have gone bankrupt or bypass the city on long-distance routes.

Phillipsburg was served by five major railroads: • Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) • Lehigh & Hudson River Railroad (L&HR) • Lehigh Valley Railroad (LVRR) • Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Phillipsburg Branch (DL&W) • Pennsylvania Railroad Belvidere Division (PRR)

Economic revival A majority of the manufacturing jobs left Warren County's largest city once Ingersoll Rand closed operations in 2000.

Portions of the town are part of an Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ), one of 32 zones covering 37 municipalities statewide. The city was selected in 1994 as one of a group of 10 zones added to participate in the program. In addition to other benefits to encourage employment within the UEZ, shoppers can take advantage of a reduced 3.3125% sales tax rate (half of the 6+5⁄8% rate charged statewide) at eligible merchants. Established in November 1994, the town's Urban Enterprise Zone status expires in October 2025.

Businesses have begun to move on to South Main Street, including the opening of the Apothecarium Dispensary – Phillipsburg in November 2019 selling marijuana, the Town Council voted in June 2021 to adopt an ordinance preventing the opening of any other cannabis retailers.

Railway A tourist railroad known as the Belvidere & Delaware River Railroad operates on the former Belvidere-Delaware Railroad Pennsylvania Railroad Branch serving excursions from Lehigh Junction Station south to Carpentersville. Norfolk Southern serves the industrial manufacturing purposes in Phillipsburg using former LVRR tracks and the L&HR bridge to connect with the Bel-Del PRR tracks.

Since 2007, NJ Transit has been conducting a study to determine if re-establishing a commuter rail extension of the Raritan Valley Line to Phillipsburg is economically feasible.

Phillipsburg also is home to the Phillipsburg Railroad Historians museum. They display railroad memorabilia inside the museum, an "N" scale diorama, two Lehigh & Hudson River cabooses (one of which is currently being restored), and a Jersey Central caboose. There is an L&HR snow flanger, Tidewater tank car, a CNJ box car owned by the Anthracite Railroads Historical Society, a 1922 Chestnut Ridge Mack railbus owned by the Lehigh Valley NRHS, a Public Service trolley owned by the North Jersey Electric Railway Historical Society, a 44-ton GE locomotive and a 25-ton GE locomotive. They operate a miniature railroad, the Centerville & Southwestern, that formerly ran in Roseland, New Jersey.

ducation

The Phillipsburg School District serves public school students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade The district is one of 31 former Abbott districts statewide that were established pursuant to the decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court in Abbott v. Burke which are now referred to as "SDA Districts" based on the requirement for the state to cover all costs for school building and renovation projects in these districts under the supervision of the New Jersey Schools Development Authority.

As of the 2020–21 school year, the district, comprised of five schools, had an enrollment of 3,877 students and 329.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 11.8:1. Schools in the district (with 2020–21 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics) are Early Childhood Learning Center with 354 students in grades Pre-K–K, Phillipsburg Primary School with 391 students in grades 1–2, Phillipsburg Elementary School with 609 students in grades 3–5, Phillipsburg Middle School with 704 students in grades 6–8 and Phillipsburg High School with 1,730 students in grades 9–12. The Phillipsburg High School Stateliners have a longstanding athletic rivalry with neighboring Easton, Pennsylvania's Easton Area High School, which celebrated its 100th anniversary game on Thanksgiving Day 2006. In 2009, the 1993 teams from the Easton P-Burg Game met again for the Gatorade REPLAY Game to resolve the game, which ended in a 7–7 tie, with more than 13,000 fans watching as Phillipsburg won by a score of 27–12.

The district's high school serves students from the Town of Phillipsburg and five sending communities at the secondary level: Alpha, Bloomsbury (in Hunterdon County), Greenwich Township, Lopatcong Township and Pohatcong Township, as part of sending/receiving relationships with the respective school districts.

Students from the town and all of Warren County are eligible to attend Ridge and Valley Charter School in Frelinghuysen Township (for grades K–8) or Warren County Technical School in Washington borough (for 9–12), with special education services provided by local districts supplemented throughout the county by the Warren County Special Services School District in Oxford Township (for PreK–12).

Private schools include Saints Philip & James School, which was established in 1875 and serves students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, operating under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Metuchen.

Transport: History Situated at the confluence of the Delaware River and the Lehigh River, Phillipsburg has historically been a major transportation hub. From the 1830s to 1920s, was the western terminus of the Morris Canal, which connected it by water eastward to the Port of New York and New Jersey and westward via the Lehigh Canal across the Delaware River. Five major railroads converged in Phillipsburg, the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ), the DL&W's Morris and Essex Railroad, the Lehigh & Hudson River Railroad (L&HR), Lehigh Valley Railroad (LVRR), and the Pennsylvania Railroad's (PRR) Belvidere Delaware Railroad. The CNJ first ran in 1852. Phillipsburg Union Station served CNJ and DL&W.

The CNJ tracks and bridge in Phillipsburg which was part of the CNJ mainline became part of the former Lehigh Valley Railroad mainline, the Lehigh Line now owned by Norfolk Southern Railway, while the PRR line in Phillipsburg is now the Belvidere and Delaware River Railway.

Transport: Road As of May 2010, the town had a total of 59.21 miles (95.29 km) of roadways, of which 54.51 miles (87.73 km) were maintained by the municipality, 2.98 miles (4.80 km) by Warren County, 1.18 miles (1.90 km) by the New Jersey Department of Transportation and 0.54 miles (0.87 km) by the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission.

Major highways that pass through Phillipsburg include U.S. Route 22 and Route 122. Interstate 78 passes through for less than a one-quarter mile (0.40 km) without any exits. The closest interchange is in neighboring Pohatcong.

The town is connected to Pennsylvania across the Delaware River by three bridges: the Easton–Phillipsburg Toll Bridge – (toll bridge carrying U.S. Route 22), the Northampton Street Bridge (the "Free Bridge") and the Interstate 78 Toll Bridge (carrying Interstate 78), all of which are operated by the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission.

Transport: Public NJ Transit bus service is provided on the 890 and 891 routes. It is also served by a bus line down Route 57 to Washington Township.

Air transportation By air, Phillipsburg is closest to Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, which is roughly 16 miles (26 km) west of Phillipsburg. The larger Newark Liberty International Airport, one of three international airports serving the New York City metropolitan area, is roughly 59 miles (95 km) to the east-northeast.