MONROE UNFILTERED: THE DAILY BUZZ | August 19
Scientology's Secret Pocono Connection, Fatal I-80 Crash, Smithfield Brawl
Wednesday, August 19, 2026
DAILY WEATHER: THE CALM BEFORE THE SOAK
Today's the pick of the week, and it's not close. Mostly sunny, a high near 85°F, an overnight low around 64°F, and just a 7% chance of rain — basically zero. If you've got yard work, a lunch outside, or an excuse to open the windows, today's the day.
Thursday flips the script: showers move in, the high drops to just 74°F, and the rain chance jumps to 54%. Keep the umbrella in the car. It doesn't last, though — Friday clears back out to mostly sunny with a high of 81°F and just a 5% shot at rain, so the week rights itself before the weekend gets iffy again.
DID YA KNOW? SCIENTOLOGY'S SECRET POCONO CONNECTION
Scientology — the religion (or cult, depending on who you ask) of stars like Tom Cruise and John Travolta — was founded by the enigmatic L. Ron Hubbard. What many here don't know is that before any of that, Hubbard passed through the Poconos.
For those of a certain age, we remember TV ads for his seminal book Dianetics, the text that defined Scientology. Hubbard, though, started his writing career grinding out pulp fiction — adventure stories, westerns, and science fiction for magazines like Astounding Science Fiction under editor John W. Campbell, who'd later help shape Hubbard's ideas into Dianetics. (Ironic, given Travolta's starring role in a little movie called Pulp Fiction.)
By early 1947, Hubbard was broke, on deadline for Campbell, and drifting — Laguna Beach, California, then briefly New York, then, according to biographer Russell Miller's Bare-Faced Messiah, Stroudsburg, “just south of the Pocono Mountains,” with his then-partner Sara Northrup. No source spells out exactly why he picked the Poconos; it may simply have offered a cheap, quiet lake town within striking distance of New York. Monroe County Commissioner David Parker says the specific location was on Analomink Lake, where Hubbard rented from Parker's grandparents, Clifford and Joan Cramer. The lighthouse-style house — slanted walls, a balcony on the third floor — is now owned by Parker's sister and her husband. (Thanks to Commissioner Parker for sharing a photo of it — see below.)
It was there, per Miller's biography, that Hubbard wrote the novel The End Is Not Yet, serialized in Astounding Science Fiction (August through October). The desk he reportedly worked at while there was passed down through the family — Parker's parents gave it to him when they moved into the lake house full time — and now sits in his own home nearby, where they call it, only half-jokingly, “the Scientology desk.”
Hubbard didn't stay in the Poconos long. By mid-1947 he'd moved on, and by 1949 he was in New Jersey drafting Dianetics, which he published in 1950 and parlayed into the Church of Scientology in late 1953. Before the celebrity converts and the tabloid headlines, though, there was a pulp writer, a rented desk, and a lake in Monroe County.
THE DAILY RUNDOWN
Parking Lot Brawl Turns Violent in Smithfield Township. Pennsylvania State Police are investigating after a large fight in the parking lot of Mignosi's Super Foodtown on Fox Run Lane escalated into a stabbing and a pistol-whipping last Friday night, around 9:43 p.m. Troopers say a father who stepped in to break up the fight was struck in the face with the butt of a handgun by a masked, unidentified assailant, while his son was stabbed in the left side; both declined medical transport. A separate man allegedly stabbed a tire on the family's Honda Odyssey. The daughter told police the confrontation stemmed from rumors her brother's ex-girlfriend had been spreading. No charges have been filed as of this writing. Anyone with information is asked to contact PSP Stroudsburg at 570-619-6480.
Frackville Man Killed in I-80 Crash Near Stroudsburg. A 34-year-old Frackville man died early Saturday after a crash on Interstate 80 eastbound near milepost 303.1 in Stroud Township, State Police at Stroudsburg say. Marcus Correa was driving a 2009 Honda Fit around 2:15 a.m. when he struck the rear of a vehicle towing a Ford Transit van on a U-Haul trailer; the van's bumper came through his windshield. He was taken to St. Luke's Monroe Campus, where he was pronounced dead. A family from Newton, Massachusetts, riding in the towing vehicle was not injured.
MONROE MARKET MOVERS
New Dollar Tree Opening at Eagle Valley Mall. A large new Dollar Tree is opening at Eagle Valley Mall on Paradise Trail in East Stroudsburg — we've seen it ourselves, though we couldn't find it yet on Dollar Tree's official store locator or any public opening announcement. We'll share an opening date once one is confirmed.