While three different brewers lived in this former “brewery mansion” over the years, people generally referred to the place as “the Stocker Mansion,” named for the brewer who built it. It stood on the northwest corner of 11th and Exeter. On this site [...]
On the southwest corner of Lancaster Ave. and Morgantown Rd., Reading, once sat the imposing George F. Boyer mansion, erected in the 1880s. Henry, whose great-grandfather started Boyertown, was born in Reading, in 1837. After a sound education and marriage to Mary Ann [...]
Wertz's Covered Bridge, also known as the Red Covered Bridge, is a historic wooden covered bridge located at Bern Township and Spring Township in Berks County, Pennsylvania. The bridge, a 204-foot-long, Burr Truss bridge, crosses the Tulpehocken Creek and serves as the walkway [...]
Andrew Carnegie was once the richest man in the world. Coming as a dirt poor kid from Scotland to the U.S., by the 1880s he'd built an empire in steel - and then gave it all away: $60 million to fund a system [...]
On April 20, 1915, two adjoining tracts of land in Muhlenberg Township, totaling 54 acres, were purchased for $20,750 for the site of the Reading Fairgrounds. Several subsequent purchases increased the area to approximately 78 acres. The site was ideal since it was [...]
When the oldest citizens were boys, and even before, there were summer gardens and other popular resorts in Reading and vicinity. Before the law was enforced prohibiting the selling of strong liquors on Sunday, there were “summer gardens” in connection with some of [...]
Muhlenberg Township had two covered bridges, Stoudt’s Ferry Bridge and Leize’s Bridge, both of which spanned the Schuylkill River and both shared with Bern Township. Bridges were covered only to extend the life of the wooden superstructures but Stoudt’s Ferry Bridge was unique [...]
One of the most historic spots along Muhlenberg Township’s River Road is the intersection with Leisz’s Bridge Road. Leisz’s Bridge was an important commercial link between Bern and Muhlenberg Townships. In particular, the early dairies in Muhlenberg Township benefited from the ease of [...]
In 1891, the Keystone Market House at 734 Penn Street was transformed into the Eden Musee (a curio hall and museum) and the Bijou Theatre. The property underwent various name changes over the next twenty-five years, including Gilder’s Auditorium, Becker’s Lyceum, the “New [...]
The Penn Square Pedestrian Mall was originally a component of a much larger urban renewal plan. Sasaki Associates' Downtown East Urban Renewal Plan of 1971 proposed an enclosed shopping mall in downtown Reading to compete with shopping malls being built in the suburbs. [...]
