Scranton is a former industrial powerhouse in northeastern Pennsylvania's Lackawanna Valley. Known as the Electric City for its pioneering adoption of electric streetcars in 1886, it boomed on anthracite coal and railroads before fading through much of the 20th century. More recently, it gained unexpected fame as the setting of the American version of The Office.
The industrial heritage is the most interesting thing here for visitors. Steamtown National Historic Site preserves a working railyard with steam locomotives, and the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour takes you 90 metres underground into a real anthracite mine. The four stone stacks of the Scranton Iron Furnaces survive just off Cedar Avenue, and the Houdini Museum, in a building where the magician once performed, is a quirky addition.
Downtown has been slowly reviving, with a walkable stretch of restaurants and bars around Courthouse Square — the Lackawanna County Courthouse anchors the square, and the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel (in the converted 1908 railway terminal) sits a few blocks south. Scranton sits at the edge of the Pocono Mountains, making it a possible base for outdoor day trips, though most visitors use it as a stop between New York and points west.