The Reading Foundry, at 7th & Chestnut Streets, once housed the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad heavy duty shops prior to 1904. Below: The Reading Foundry, at 7th & Chestnut Streets. The construction of the railway in 1836 immediately stimulated enterprises of various kinds, [...]
On Decembers, 1928, Catherine Burns opened The Rosedale Variety Shop at 1505 Elizabeth Avenue. The business was quite successful, in no small measure due to Catherine's outgoing nature and well-chosen stock. In 1950, the old store was razed and replaced by one three [...]
After Reading was sketched out by Thomas Penn in 1748, most of the development centered around Market Square (present day Penn Street) and west in almost a straight line to the Schuylkill River. For the next 100 years, development stayed mostly in that [...]
When Thomas Penn laid out the town in 1748, he chose the site of an old Indian ford on the Schuylkill River. The ford served an old Indian trail which had become one of the major routes north and west from Philadelphia. Penn’s [...]
Roadside America, known as the “world’s greatest indoor miniature village,” announced November 21, 2020 that it is permanently closing after 85 years in business. Roadside America Corporate was unable to disclose the buyer or the buyer’s plans for the property but said that [...]
The Madison Building at 400 Washington Street was recently sold for $2,500,000. Developer David Hasenfeld, owner of Madison 2020 LLC, New Castle, Delaware, has an adaptive reuse plan to create 85 high-end apartment units with both one and two-bedroom floor plans. The Madison [...]
Skyline Drive on Mount Penn was constructed by laborers of the Works Progress Administration, a federal program established in 1935 to help decrease unemployment. Under this program, those on relief were assigned to works that would be of direct benefit to the public. [...]
The Hawthorn Mansion at the corner of Clymer St. and Mineral Spring Rd. was built by George Frederick Baer as a summer vacation home around the turn of the 20th century. George Frederick Baer (September 26, 1842 – April 26, 1914) was born [...]
In 1950, Santa Claus was banned from the Reading Christmas parade. Not that the city didn't believe in Santa. But the parade sponsors, the young men of the Reading, Pennsylvania, Junior Chamber of Commerce, also known as the Jaycees, wanted the observance to [...]
The mistletoe Americans are familiar with -- phoradendron serotinum -- grows primarily in the Southeast and as far west as Texas and Oklahoma. In swamps, it can be plucked off low-hanging branches by hand. It can sometimes be taken by ladder or by [...]
