Located at the Southwest corner of 8th and Penn Streets in Reading, PA is a building patterned architecturally after Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, PA. The building, erected in 1929 by the Penn National Bank and Trust Co. on the site of its former [...]
In the 1930s Reading, Pennsylvania, was a medium-sized city of 111,000 inhabitants. As the seat of Berks County, Reading was the social, political, and economic focus for the predominantly agricultural communities that surrounded it. It was also a faultless embodiment of Main Street, [...]
Neversink Mountain, and its counterpart, Mt. Penn, are composed of Hardyston quartzite which being resistant to the atmospheric agencies, has been reduced more slowly than the adjacent limestones and so form steep hills or mountains rising 600 to 800 feet above that portion [...]
Kershner's Ice Cream Parlor was the favorite stopping off place for Reading's old timers for the better part of 50 years. The business was started initially about 1895 by the late Jonas Sharman. He sold it about eight years later to Andrew Kershner. [...]
The South Reading Market at 548 Bingaman (southwest comer of 6th and Bingaman) was one of the city's most recognized and enduring structures. It was one of a number of "sanitary market houses" erected just before the two Penn Square market buildings closed [...]
Long before the days of big-box stores like Walmart and Target, five-and-dime stores had everything you needed. You could buy clothes, grab some treats, and eat lunch for under $20. Kresge's, W. T. Grants, Woolwoth's, and McCrory's, all once were a part of [...]
The manufacture of cigars began in Reading about 1800. A box of cigars always stood on the counter of every tavern and its contents were free to all guests. Cigar-makers generally made from 800 to 1,500 cigars a day. Several made 2,000. The [...]
Milton Snavely Hershey (September 13, 1857 – October 13, 1945) was an American chocolatier, businessman, and philanthropist. At the age of 14, Hershey, who'd dropped out of school the year before, expressed an interest in candy making and began apprenticing with a master [...]
Outlets first appeared in the Eastern United States in the 1930s. Factory stores started to offer damaged or excess goods to employees at a low price. After some time, the audience expanded to include non-employees. In 1936, Anderson-Little (a men's clothing brand) opened [...]
Green Spot is a brand of non-carbonated, non-caffeinated orange-based soft drink originating in the United States but today produced in Thailand and Venezuela. While not as globally famous as Coca-Cola or Pepsi, it holds a unique legacy in certain parts of the world, especially [...]
