Penn State Wilkes-Barre
The response from local citizens and civic organizations was overwhelming, and on November 7, 1916, the Penn State Department of Engineering Extension began offering evening classes for 150 students in what is now Coughlin High School.The non-credit, tuition-free, government sponsored college level courses trained workers already in war production to take over more highly skilled jobs.In 1968 the school moved from a variety of downtown Wilkes-Barre buildings to its current rural/suburban campus, a 54-acre estate in Lehman, PA, donated for that purpose by Richard and Helen Robinson and originally owned by John and Bertha Conyngham.(Pictures of the furnished mansion were taken by well-known architectural photographer Samuel H. Gottscho in 1934; these images are held in the Gottscho-Schleisner collection at the U.S. Library of Congress.)Its mission is to extend the resources of the University to Bradford and Sullivan Counties, which are largely rural areas of Northeastern Pennsylvania not readily accessible to a Penn State campus.