Category:Allentown Fish Hatchery

The Lil Le Hi Trout Nursery, commonly known as the Fish Hatchery is a part of the City of Allentown Parks and Recreation Department. It is our group's cover photo for this week.

The nursery is located on Fish Hatchery Road, just south of the Route 29/Cedar Crest Boulevard exit of Route 78/Route 309 or Route 22.

It is the only municipally owned trout nursery in the United States. The nursery raises roughly 25,000 brook, brown, rainbow and golden rainbow trout each year for stocking into the Little Lehigh Creek and other streams within the city park system. All fish, which are provided by the state Fish and Boat Commission, arrive at the nursery as fingerlings and raised to adulthood by the volunteer sportsmen. Unlike trout in state hatcheries, which are stocked after one year, fish reared at Lil-Le-Hi Trout Nursery are grown for two years before their release.

The hatchery was founded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1883. The state operated it until 1903, when the operation was taken over by the Troxell family. In 1907, the facility was purchased by local businessman and philanthropist Gen. Harry C. Trexler, who upgraded and expanded the hatchery and operated it until his death in 1933, after which the facility became part of his estate.

After Trexlers death in 1933, the hatchery went through a long period of uncertainty as local businessmen, sportsmen's groups and government agencies decided its future. In 1945, a court decided the facility should be purchased by the City of Allentown, which paid $40,000 for the nursery in 1946. In 1949, the city entered into a cooperative lease agreement that allowed three local sportsmen's clubs to operate the nursery on the city's behalf and stock fish raised there exclusively into waterways within the city limits.