For three decades, one of the city’s most popular and interesting attractions was the yellow-brick play castle in City park, situated on the north side of Washington Street, above 11th. The Reading City Park Kiddie Kastle was the brainchild of former city [...]
In the nineteenth century there was not the network of government sponsored social service agencies that are in place today. When needs arose, they were generally taken care of by families, benevolent societies, or by religious institutions. In the nineteenth century and for [...]
Whander Field was an airport located in the field across Route 73 from the Schuylkill Valley High School. Whander field was developed as a true community project without any Federal or State subsidy. It was quite modest by today's standards. It was little [...]
In 1872 Right Rev. Monsignor Bornemann, who in his fatherly sympathy had ever been most eager to relieve the wants of poor suffering humanity, purchased a three and half acre parcel of land from the Augustus Vollmer Estate for the sum of $10,000 [...]
Around beginning of the twentieth century, the first Ukrainian immigrants came to Reading from Western Ukraine and from the Southwestern part of the Carpathian mountain region, mainly from Lemko region. Deeply religious and closely attached to their Church, the Ukrainian immigrants were reluctant [...]
In 1920, St. Joseph's Church, 8th and Spring Streets, was the only Catholic Church in Reading north of Walnut Street. To accommodate the growing population in the northwest section of the city, Archbishop (later Cardinal) Dennis Dougherty, established St. Margaret's Parish on February [...]
In the early 1900’s only a few Italian families were to be found scattered throughout the City of Reading. But their number increased so rapidly that it soon became necessary to look after their spiritual needs and organize them into a congregation. In [...]
On June 10, 1874; the Reverend A.D. Filan of St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church, Reading, bought from the Reading Railroad Company the property on which St. Joseph's Church is situated today. The lot was 100 feet front by 115 feet deep, and on [...]
Around 1880, the first Slovaks came to Reading from Saris, Spis and Zemplin, areas in Czechoslovakia, and later from Trencin, Orava and Nitra, also in Czechoslovakia. During their first years in Reading, they attended Mass at St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church, and then [...]
On Tuesday afternoon, June 30, 1981, commuters gathered at the Franklin Street Station to board one of the last trains making a run from Pottsville through Reading to Philadelphia waited patiently for the diesel to arrive. The trip would be their last on [...]
