At the turn of the 20th century there were few means of travel. Of course, there was the horse and carriage, which was fine, if the city dweller had one. There were some foolish people, too, who were making use of that new-fangled [...]
McCrory Stores or J.G. McCrory's was a chain of five and dime stores in the United States based in York, Pennsylvania. Below: South Side, 500 block of Penn Street, 1960s. Below: South Side, 500 block of Penn Street, left to right: [...]
The Penn Hardware was founded in Reading, PA in 1877 by Charles Raymond Heizmann, who became the president of Penn Hardware, and his brother Albert Aloyeuis Heizmann, who became treasurer. Penn Hardware made some of the finest brass and steel hardware produced in [...]
The city of Reading is bounded on the west by the Schuylkill River, on the east by Mount Penn, and on the south by Neversink Mountain. Overlooking the city on Mount Penn are two landmarks, a Japanese-style pagoda, and the William Penn Memorial [...]
On Sunday, May 24th, 1846, dedication services were held at the newly built Saint Peter's church. The congregation of the new church increased rapidly so that in 1854, there were said to be about 3,000 souls composed of about equal number of Irish, [...]
As a preface to the history of Saint Peter the Apostle R.C. Church in Reading, it may be of interest to first relate a few things about the development of Catholicity in Pennsylvania, in so far as it involves Berks County. As is [...]
The first Catholic congregation to be established in Pennsylvania was in 1734 when Father Greaton, S. J., a missionary from Maryland, built the Church of St. Joseph in Willing’s Alley in Philadelphia. In 1741 Father Theodore Schneider was sent by the German Province [...]
The Buttonwood Street Reservoir consists of two tanks. The south tank was completed in 1895 and covered in 1910. It holds 926,000 gallons, with a length of 130 feet and 105 feet in width, with a depth of 24.5 feet. The south tank [...]
In November 1891, a contract was issued to local builder Levi H. Focht to erect the Neversink Mountain Hotel, which was to sit atop the mountain almost directly above 23rd and Perkiomen Avenue. An army of workmen was hired for the task that [...]
The date of the beginning of the settlement of Sinking Spring was in 1793, although there were settlers in this heavily timbered area, ruled over by Indians as early as 1728. The Indians who first inhabited this area were the Lenni Lenape Indians [...]
