In 1864, Frederick R. Frill purchased from William Leinbach a farm of 116 acres. In 1873, he laid this land off into lots, and most of the lots in the blocks south of Penn Avenue and east of present-day Fifth Avenue were numbered [...]
Until 1964 the most familiar structure in West Reading was the West Reading Hotel on the north side of the Penn Ave. between 5th and 6th. Below: West Reading Hotel, northeast corner of Sixth and Penn Ave. The three-story structure had [...]
John Nolen (1869–1937) was the first American to identify himself exclusively as a town and city planner. Nolen was orphaned as a child and placed in Girard College. After he graduated first in his class in 1884, he worked as a grocery clerk [...]
Bern Township is a township in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Bern Township was settled in 1733, mostly by German farmers. It was established in 1738 and was named for the city of Berne, Switzerland. Originally, it was bounded on the east by the Schuylkill [...]
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, [...]
Many years ago the glen stretching between present day Egelman's Park and Pendora Park was given the name Rosenthal or Rose Valley. The glen is formed by the depression of neighboring mountains. Rose Valley is situated in Lower Alsace Township, named after the [...]
A farm belonging to Michael Haak once encompassed about 229 acres in East Reading beginning at a point what is now Thirteenth and Chestnut streets on the west and going as far east as Nineteenth street. On the north the farm was bounded [...]
Sinking Spring Drive-In The Sinking Spring Drive-In, which opened in 1955, was the third in Berks to be built in the post-World War II heyday of America's love affair with the car. When it was built by Fabian and Jay Emanuel Theaters, its [...]
Mount Penn was known as "Dengler's" from 1841 to 1902, having been named after George Dengler, Esq., the first prominent citizen of that vicinity; who, in 1840, purchased fifty-six acres of land and a tavern which stood at the intersection of the Philadelphia [...]
The date of the beginning of the settlement of Sinking Spring was in 1793, although there were settlers in this heavily timbered area, ruled over by Indians as early as 1728. The Indians who first inhabited this area were the Lenni Lenape Indians [...]
