Along the old alignment of Route 183 where the highway once traced the Tulpehocken Creek stood the Schlappich farm, in the southern part of Penn Township, Berks County. The farmstead lay on the north side of the road, opposite the cluster of summer [...]

Pyle’s Keystone Store sat at the bend where State Hill Road tipped you down into the village of Blue Marsh, a few easy strides from the iron truss bridge and the old Blue Marsh Hotel. If you knew the place, you can still [...]

Pleasant Valley—once the unassuming hinge of the lower Tulpehocken between State Hill and Mt. Pleasant—was a compact hamlet where farm met factory, canal met country road, and a mill’s hum blended with wagon-shop rhythms. For more than a century it held together the [...]