52 E. Fifth St. in the borough of Jim Thorpe- formerly East Mauch Chunk- is probably not the sort of place that most visitors come there to see.
There are no mid-19th century homes like the elegant Asa Packer Mansion to tour or picturesque shops with charm to visit for that just-perfect gift or the ideal restaurant to dine in.
In fact, unless a tourist is seeking the industrial / historical roots of the town and its natural beauty, as the old guidebooks used to say, “nothing further need detain the traveler here.” But what they will see is the red brick, nearly roofless ruins of a 19th century silk mill, one that has a story that was a part of the rise and fall of a man who was once one of the wealthiest in the country. A gamble was made here, and it was lost. It was also here and in many other silk mills like it across the region that the welfare of many depended on.
The silk industry in the Lehigh Valley began in 1881 in Allentown. Hoping to lift their community out of the economic doldrums left by the decline of the iron railroad industry, community leaders managed to persuade a silk mill in Paterson, New Jersey, then the nation’s silk-making center, to set up shop there. The Adelaide Silk Mill was a success and that turned many eyes to the region.
At roughly the same time a young man from Austria-Hungary, the so-called Dual-Monarchy, was hoping to expand his horizons. His name was Desiderius George Deri (1867-1942). His roots were minor level Hungarian nobility, what might be called the gentry. “They were not nobility but just below it,” his son-in-law Dr. Carl Strauch, an English professor at Lehigh University, noted in a 1985 interview…