Living in Gouldsboro, PA — A Village on the County Line

Gouldsboro is a quiet Pocono village and census-designated place of roughly 750 residents (2020 Census), and the first thing to understand about it is geographic: it straddles a county line.

Part of Gouldsboro sits in Lehigh Township, Wayne County, and part sits in Coolbaugh Township, Monroe County. That is not trivia — it means two different counties, two different sets of taxes, and two different sets of municipal services depending on which side of the line a house falls on. Always confirm the county and township on a Gouldsboro address before you make an offer. We will pull it for you.

Outdoors & Parks

⭐ Gouldsboro State Park is the reason to be here. It covers 2,880 acres across those same two townships and centers on the 250-acre Gouldsboro Lake — boating, fishing, swimming in season, hiking and winter recreation, with campground facilities. Living beside a state park of that size, in a village of 750 people, is a genuinely rare arrangement in Pennsylvania.

Tobyhanna State Park and the surrounding state forest are minutes away, extending the trail and water access well beyond Gouldsboro’s own park.

Things to Do

This is the quiet end of the Poconos. The recreation is the attraction — lake, woods, trails and seasons. For dining, retail and the resort economy, Mount Pocono and the Route 380/I-84 corridor are a short drive, and Scranton is roughly half an hour northwest.

Schools

School assignment here follows the county line like everything else. The Monroe County side falls within the Pocono Mountain School District, the largest district in Northeastern Pennsylvania at 305 square miles. Confirm the assigned district on any specific address rather than assuming from the mailing address — in a split village, the mailing address is not the authority.

School Performance

State assessment results for the high schools serving Gouldsboro, from the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Future Ready PA Index, 2024–25 school year:

• Pocono Mountain East High School — Keystone Literature 73.9% proficient or advanced (statewide 49.9%) · Keystone Algebra I 57.2% (statewide 41.7%) · four-year graduation rate 94.2% (statewide 88.0%)
• Pocono Mountain West High School — Keystone Literature 63.7% proficient or advanced (statewide 49.9%) · Keystone Algebra I 41.7% (statewide 41.7%) · four-year graduation rate 98.2% (statewide 88.0%)

Source: Pennsylvania Department of Education, Future Ready PA Index, 2024–25. We publish these same three measures, from this same source, on every community page in this guide.

Everyday Essentials

Day-to-day shopping runs to Mount Pocono and the surrounding corridor. Regional hospital care is in the Stroudsburg area for the Monroe side and toward Honesdale’s Wayne Memorial Hospital for the Wayne County side — another reason the county line matters here.

The Homes

Gouldsboro’s inventory is small and mostly consists of homes in the wooded lots and lake communities typical of this part of the Poconos, alongside older village housing. Many properties in the surrounding area belong to private communities with association dues and rules, and many were originally built as seasonal cabins rather than year-round homes.

Four questions on any property here: which county and township, what the association charges, who maintains the road, and whether the house is genuinely built for winter. Get those answered before you write.