As of the census According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of , all land.

Nazareth's climate is similar to the rest of the Lehigh Valley with four distinct seasons, humid summers, cold winters, and very short and mild springs and falls. This climate is hot-summer humid continental (Dfa) and average monthly temperatures range from in January to in July. The hardiness zone is 6b. Nazareth's topography can best be described as hilly, as the town itself sits atop a local outcropping underground of one of the richest veins of limestone in the U.S. Much of the farmland surrounding Nazareth is being converted into close sitting lots of suburban housing, for predominantly commuter households.

Transportation

thumb|[[Pennsylvania Route 191|PA Route 191 South and PA Route 248 West in Nazareth]]

As of 2016, there were of public roads in Nazareth, of which were maintained by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) and were maintained by the borough.

Pennsylvania Route 191 and Pennsylvania Route 248 are the numbered highways serving Nazareth. PA 248 follows Easton Road along an east-west alignment across the southern edge of the borough. PA 191 follows a southwest-northeast alignment via Easton Road, Broad Street, Center Street and New Street, including a short concurrency with PA 248.

Education

Nazareth Borough is served by the Nazareth Area School District, which also comprises the surrounding townships of Bushkill, Upper Nazareth, and Lower Nazareth, and the boroughs of Tatamy and Stockertown. Students in grades nine through 12 attend Nazareth Area High School. Students in grades seven through eight attend Nazareth Area Middle School.

The district's schools include:

  • Lower Nazareth Elementary
  • Floyd R. Shafer Elementary
  • Kenneth N. Butz Jr Elementary
  • Nazareth Area Intermediate School
  • Nazareth Area Middle School
  • Nazareth Area High School

Media

News about the Nazareth community is reported regularly in regional newspapers The Morning Call and The Express-Times daily newspapers and local shoppers, including The Nazareth Times, The Home News, and The Key.

Nazareth Speedway

Nazareth was home to the Nazareth Speedway, a one-mile tri-oval automobile racing course. The track opened in 1910 and closed in 2004; the site has remained vacant ever since. Nazareth is also home to racing champions Mario Andretti and Michael Andretti, and third-generation driver Marco Andretti.

Industry

Nazareth is home to a mix of historic and modern businesses that shape its small-town economy and identity. The borough home to the headquarters and factory of C. F. Martin & Company, the world-renowned guitar maker, which has operated in Nazareth since relocating from New York City in 1839.

Another long-standing business is Kraemer Textiles, a mill established in 1887 that still produces yarns for both industrial use and hand-knitting, even supplying Merino wool for U.S. Olympic team sweaters. Alongside these heritage manufacturers, Nazareth also supports a growing number of local retailers, restaurants, and service businesses clustered around its walkable downtown. There is also a Chevy dealership in the area. The Nazareth Area Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Commission actively promote entrepreneurship and small business growth, ensuring the town balances its industrial roots with a vibrant, community-oriented marketplace.

Kraemer Textiles Inc.

Kraemer Textiles Inc., which started out as a silk hosiery maker in 1887, is based in Nazareth. Over the years, the company changed to spinning yarns out of manmade and natural fibers for clients to use in the manufacture of upholstery, clothing, and home furnishings. The company creates and markets its own brand of handicraft yarns under the Kraemer Yarns label. The company also spun the Merino wool yarn that was used in creating the end-to-end American-made sweaters produced by the Ralph Lauren Corporation for the athletes of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Martin Guitar

thumb|The headquarters and factory of [[C. F. Martin & Company in Nazareth.]]

Nazareth houses the global headquarters and main factory of C. F. Martin & Company, which manufactures acoustic guitars and ukuleles. Founded in New York City in 1833, it relocated to Nazareth in 1839. Martin guitars have been used by some of the world's most prominent guitarists, including Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, Neil Young, John Lennon, Willie Nelson, Kurt Cobain, Eric Clapton, and John Mayer.

Cement manufacturing

In the 1960s, at least three large cement companies surrounded the Nazareth borough area, Essroc (formally Coplay Cement), Hercules Cement, and Penn-Dixie Cement Companies. The Coplay plant on the south side has undergone company ownership changes through the years (and was also known as the Nazareth Cement Company, among other names). Hundreds of union laborers of the United Gypsum, Lime and Cement Unions worked in each plant around the town from the early 1900s.

Stories of the hard pre-union days at the cement plants are replete with the description of twelve-hour days for survival wages, poor working and health conditions, and many dangerous incidents and accidents causing loss of life and or limb without medical plans or benefits to survivors. Since the 1980s, however, the automation of the plants and eventual reselling of them to foreign firms has brought about the loss of most of the high-paying union cement jobs, presenting a blow to the Lehigh Valley economy. The impact on the local economy of these lost cement jobs was intensified by the closure of Bethlehem Steel in 2003. In the case of Bethlehem Steel, it was not automation and modernization that downsized the workforce, but failure to modernize the mills, overloaded management, and a laissez-faire management attitude about foreign competition and cheap foreign steel production.

Notable people

  • Marco Andretti, professional IndyCar Series race car driver
  • Mario Andretti, 1967 Daytona 500 winner, 1969 Indy 500 winner, 1978 Formula One champion, 1984 IndyCar Series champion, and 29-time Indy 500 starter
  • Michael Andretti, 1991 IndyCar Series champion, Formula One race car driver and IndyCar Series team owner
  • Jason Bernard, Nazareth Borough Zombie Awareness Czar
  • Jahan Dotson (born 2000), professional football wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles
  • Sage Karam, professional NASCAR Xfinity Series race car driver
  • Joe Kovacs, track and field athlete, Olympic silver medalist, world champion in shot put
  • Christian Frederick Martin, luthier and founder of C. F. Martin & Company
  • Kate Micucci, actress, comedian, artist, and singer-songwriter
  • Jordan White, rock musician
  • Lydia Sigourney's poem "Funeral at Nazareth" is accompanied by text in relation to the Moravian settlements both there and in Bethlehem.
  • The 1968 song "The Weight" by the Band concerns a traveler who arrives in Nazareth and the people he encounters there, including the Devil. Songwriter Robbie Robertson included Nazareth in the song after seeing its name printed on his Martin guitar. The Scottish rock band Nazareth later took their name from the song.
  • Mark Knopfler wrote a 2000 song about a season of racing at Nazareth Speedway titled "Speedway At Nazareth". The song appears on Knopfler's second solo album, Sailing to Philadelphia.

See also

thumb|Nazareth Borough Hall

  • Indian Tower
  • Memorial Library of Nazareth & Vicinity

References

  • Nazareth news at The Morning Call