In 1827, that wagon road became the nation's second operating railroad, the Summit Hill & Mauch Chunk Railroad which is regarded as the world's first roller coaster, which became its main function between 1873 and 1931. The area around Mauch Chunk was known as the ""Switzerland of America"", the long wide slack water pool above the Lehigh's upper dam being surrounded by Mauch Chunk Ridge, Bear Mountain, Pisgah Ridge, Mount Pisgah, Nesquehoning Ridge, Broad Mountain and their various prominences and summits. Another railroad first, the first railway to operate steam locomotives as traction engines and prime movers in the United States was the Beaver Meadows Railroad, which connected from mines west of Beaver Meadows and Weatherly on the opposite side of Broad Mountain along a water path through the Lehigh Gorge at Penn Haven Junction (once supporting five railroads) to the Lehigh Canal opposite Lehighton.