Peter Barbey: From Penn Street to New York
The Barbey–Quier–Hawley story begins with the Reading Eagle itself. In 1868, Jesse G. Hawley and William S. Ritter founded [...]
Barbey’s Bet: How a Reading Mill Became VF Corporation
At the turn of the 20th century, Reading was humming with knit-goods shops and glove makers. In October 1899, [...]
The Pennsylvania Dutch Heartland: Farming Culture and German Heritage That Shaped a Region
Across the rolling valleys of Berks, Lancaster, and Lehigh counties, the agricultural order and devotional calm of the Pennsylvania [...]
The Schlappich Farm and Locustdale: A Valley Replaced by a Highway and a Lake
Along the old alignment of Route 183 where the highway once traced the Tulpehocken Creek stood the Schlappich farm, [...]
Pyle’s Keystone Store of Blue Marsh
Pyle’s Keystone Store sat at the bend where State Hill Road tipped you down into the village of Blue [...]
Pleasant Valley Lost
Pleasant Valley—once the unassuming hinge of the lower Tulpehocken between State Hill and Mt. Pleasant—was a compact hamlet where [...]
The Quarries of Mount Penn: Witman, Kirschmann, and Reading Sand & Stone
Mount Penn’s western face was reshaped between the 1890s and mid-1920s by three distinct quarry operations whose scars created [...]
Charles A. Reed and the Last Seasons of a Muhlenberg Farm
Charles A. Reed was born in 1914 in a first-floor bedroom of a white stone-and-stucco farmhouse on the south [...]
P. F. Eisenbrown of Reading, PA—and the Twin Firemen’s Statue that Connects Reading to Manila
P. F. Eisenbrown & Sons traces its roots to the Eagle Marble & Granite Works in Reading’s 300 block [...]
The Damiano Family: A Three-Generation Crime Dynasty in Reading, PA
For much of the 20th century, Reading, Pennsylvania earned the moniker “Sin City” for its entrenched rackets in gambling, [...]
The Murder of Frank Donato: Reading’s Most Perilous Mob Entanglement
In the fall of 1962, attention in Reading’s underworld drifted away from Abe Minker and the city’s familiar vice [...]
Kings of Sin City: The Succession of Reading’s Racket Rulers
For decades, Reading, Pennsylvania, carried the notorious moniker "Sin City," an identity forged in smoky backrooms, illegal breweries, and [...]
Abe “The Baron” Minker: Reading’s Sin City Years
In the annals of American organized crime, the names that resonate are often tied to the sprawling metropolises of [...]
The Philanthropic Bootlegger: How Max Hassel Became Reading’s Most Beloved Criminal
The Gentleman Bootlegger Who Defied Every Stereotype In the violent, chaotic world of Prohibition-era organized crime, Max Hassel stood [...]
Tony Moran: The Shadow King of Reading’s Underworld
From Anthony Mirenna to Tony Moran: The Making of a Racketeer Born Anthony Mirenna in 1903 in Tunis, Africa, [...]
The History of Joseph O’Brien’s Golden Ball
In the 19th century, few retail establishments in Reading, Pennsylvania, captured the public imagination quite like Joseph O’Brien’s Golden [...]
From Log Cabin to High-Rise: The Evolution of Reading’s Madison Building
At the corner of Fourth and Washington Streets in Reading, Pennsylvania, stands a site that embodies over 260 years [...]
The Corrupt City: Group W’s Documentary on Reading, Pennsylvania
In the late 1960s, Westinghouse Broadcasting’s Urban America series pulled no punches. One of its most arresting installments, The [...]
The Reading David Crystal Plant
For most of the 20th century, the corner of North 13th and Rosemont Streets marked one of Reading’s busiest [...]
Mount Penn Honors Veterans with Memorial Clock
Mount Penn Dedicates Memorial Clock to Honor War Heroes On the evening of July 18, 1949, the borough of [...]
The Evolving Legacy of Mount Penn’s 23rd & Perkiomen Ave.
The corner of 23rd Street and Perkiomen Avenue in Mount Penn has long been a focal point of community [...]