St. Catharine's Orphan Asylum for Girls was founded due to the generosity of Mrs. Catharine Madary, a Reading widow who passed away on May 22, 1871. Below: The photo below shows the small beginning of St. Catharine's Female Orphan's Asylum. Due to her [...]
Milton Snavely Hershey (September 13, 1857 – October 13, 1945) was an American chocolatier, businessman, and philanthropist. At the age of 14, Hershey, who'd dropped out of school the year before, expressed an interest in candy making and began apprenticing with a master [...]
The first main shaft for iron ore in Reading was sunk on Mt. Penn around 1843. The first mining there was done for the late George W. Oakeley. At first most of the ore was shipped to Phoenixville and some to a furnace [...]
Around the turn of the last century many people would visit City Park because they believed that the spring that spouted forth "iron water" at an outlet adjoining the Lily Pond had healing properties. Below: City Park Iron Water Spring at an [...]
James Nolan, president of Reading Trust Co. and a railroad and bridge contractor for many years, was born in Ireland in 1844. His dad moved to New York in 1849 where he worked as a stone-cutter. In 1855, part of the family relocated [...]
Tyson-Schoener Elementary School was built in 1928 and was named for Benjamin Tyson and Adam Schoener, local legislators who supported the establishment of free public schools in 1834. This Art Deco building features a series of terra-cotta panels depicting nursery rhymes and other [...]
West of the Reading Hospital and Medical Center, between Seventh Avenue and Park Road, on the Wyomissing-West Reading border, stands the imposing Masonic Temple, dedicated in 1963. The square on which it is located gives little hint of the history associated with the [...]
Perched atop the old Hampden reservoir (now an athletic field) to the North and South were once two Civil War-vintage .62 bore "Bronze Napoleon" field guns. Viewed from the foot of the steep approach to Hampden Park they were formidable looking objects. Their [...]
Few shoppers at the former Madeira Shopping Plaza, the commercial strip that extends from the former K-mart to the Redner's Warehouse Market, opposite today's Fairgrounds Mall, would guess that the land once was home to a farm and airfield. The Madeira family had [...]
he Penn Street Viaduct at Reading, PA is located at the foot of Penn Street. The viaduct begins at the west curb line of Second Street and extends westward a distance of 1,350 feet. When completed in 1913, the viaduct carried Penn Street [...]
