History :

Artists, musicians, vocalists, business and professional people and other arts-minded individuals met on November 15, 1993 to organize an arts council in an area of the Endless Mountains Region that would encompass all of Wyoming County and the western half of Susquehanna County. Bill Daniels, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Bob Stark, administrator and originator of the Art Exchange, Uniondale, attended the organizational meeting which was held at Shadowbrook Resort in Tunkhannock to offer suggestions. Ideas were further developed at a meeting on January 10, 1994 when charter members discussed the potential of an arts council that would act as a catalyst for generating interest in visual and performing arts. They decided to file articles of incorporation and to compile a list of visual artists, craftspeople, musicians, actors, dancers and writers to build membership in the organization.

In 1995, EMCA was awarded non-profit status and began sponsoring cultural activities such as poetry readings, bus trips and art lectures. Council gained the sustaining support of a few local businesses that enabled it to continue with projects such as "River Reflections", a traveling art exhibit of works by local visual artists and "Dearly Departed", a dinner theatre featuring the Winding River Players of Towanda, PA.