This is the story of a South Bethlehem hotel - a "mythical" establishment that existed from the 1870s into the early 1900s known as "Pacific House." The hotel was located across from Victorian-era Union Station at the junction of the North Penn and Lehigh Valley railroads. Today, little remains except a wall of its foundation below the west side of Hill-to-Hill Bridge along the Lehigh River.

Opposite Union Station, travelers conveniently lodged at the 3.5-story triangular-shaped Pacific House - its northern side perched on a stonewall above the Lehigh River. Of the hotel's four sides, north was the only "peaceful" side where lodgers might view occasional boaters on the river.

On the east side of the hotel, the second floor porch overlooked busy Wyandotte Street. From this vantage point, guest's endured the racket of horse hooves and wagon wheels on their approach to the covered bridge over the Lehigh. The hotel's short south wall faced the railroad tracks of the North Penn and Lehigh Valley railroads; and the west wall sat along a single Jersey Central Railroad track from an iron bridge that crossed the river. With noisy horses, wagons and railroad traffic, the term "Pacific" must have seemed a joke to South Bethlehem residents.

Pacific House owners, Aaron, Thomas and Joseph Marsteller, formed a company to operate the hotel. However, Thomas and Joseph became sole proprietors of the hotel after the death of their brothers, Samuel (1868) and Aaron (1877).

Situated at the railroad junction and South Bethlehem's early "business district," the hotel gave access to the Anthracite Building (1872) on Lehigh (now Brighton) Street. The building housed offices of the E.P. Wilbur Banking Company, offices of businessmen and attorneys, and was headquarters of the Lehigh Valley Railroad.

Thomas F. Marsteller certainly witnessed the development of South Bethlehem as proprietor of Pacific House. On the hotel's first floor, he greeted guests and booked their rooms at the front desk. Morris Albright was in charge of livery and horse stables; male guests in need of a hair cut and a shave went to Walter Starr's barber shop, and guests who felt "peckish" after their long journey were seated in the restaurant where meals were served in the public rooms.

By winter of 1890, electric service was installed in the hotel but not yet in service. In February, Marsteller nearly lost his guests to asphyxiation when gas lines suddenly froze, blowing out flames that illuminated the hotel rooms. Hours later, when gas was restored to the lines, jets which were not turned off allowed gas to seep into the rooms. Aware the gas was back on, a frantic Marsteller ran from room to room, awaken his guests and turned off the gas jets.

Several years later, another incident put Pacific House back in the public eye - but this incident potentially could have lost the hotel its liquor license.

Marsteller was allegedly unaware that a ring of criminals used his public rooms to prey on unsuspecting guests. Much to his surprise, this revelation came to light March 23, 1897, during a court hearing while he applied for his liquor license.

At the hearing, court members and community paragons, Robert H. Sayre, A.W. Cleaver and R.M. Gummere, showed more interest in complaints of "bands of professional criminals, who operated and conducted a certain scheme known as the 'Green Goods Game.'" Furthermore, they claimed, " . . . the 'Green Goods Game' is so notorious [to so many] that it must be known to T.F. Marsteller, proprietor" [of the hotel].

Pacific House porter, Morris Hottenstein, testified, "it was six, eight and ten green goods men [who met] at the hotel at one time, who made no effort to conceal their game - and the proprietor of the hotel . . . was well-aware of what was going on in the place." What the court didn't know was that Hottenstein was a go-between in the "game." Harry Lutz, a passenger on the North Penn Railroad, testified that among railroad men, Pacific House had a reputation of being "a green goods and confidence joint."

He said he had directed some pretty good-sized "marks" or "suckers" away from the place after many of them told him in confidence that they were going to [Pacific House] to buy "green goods." He told them they should ". . . take the next train back home . . ." and keep their money.

On March 24, the court charged Marsteller with knowledge and support of the criminal 'Green Goods Game' at Pacific House.

The Green Goods Game

After reviews and the testimonies of witnesses, the scheme behind the "green goods game" was duly revealed:

"Sharpers" (professional swindlers from New York and Jersey City) boarded passenger trains every hour from New York City; they arrived at Union Station and were met by porter Hottenstein, who escorted them across Wyandotte Street to Pacific House. There they waited over three hours for the next trains to arrive with additional colleagues.

"Suckers" were usually farmers from the West and the South, known by their clothing and broad-rimmed hats. They were steered to Pacific House, according to Hottenstein, a total of "a couple hundred during the last year." Once "roped in" by "sharpers," farmers who paid $300 (worth $8,010 today) were the recipients of counterfeit money, "so perfect, that nobody could tell it from the genuine article."

When the farmer and "sharper" met in one of the public rooms at Pacific House, $1,000 in real money (worth $26,700 today), "was counted out and placed in a tin box right before the farmer's eyes." The box was provided with a lock and the farmer was always cautioned, "not to open the box" until he got home, "lest he got caught by a government officer for having counterfeit money."

Unbeknown to the farmer, he didn't get the box he paid for; instead, he received a similar tin box filled with strips of blank paper cut the same size as ordinary dollar bills, "one or two good ones on the top of the pile next to the lid."

Eventually the game was "busted" and Pacific House was "clean" of criminal activity. As for Marsteller, the court proved him not guilty as an accomplice in the "Green Goods Game" and granted him the liquor license.

This caper pales to 20th century events during Prohibition and the Great Depression, when South Bethlehem was considered a "wide open" town - a haven of vice, speak-easies and prostitution, attractive to out-of-towners. But that's another story.