On May 29, 1887, a group of German-speaking Catholic immigrants gathered in Reading, Pennsylvania, and did what thousands of immigrant communities across America were doing in the late nineteenth century — they organized. They pooled their small resources, pledged mutual loyalty, and formed [...]
High above Reading on the Mount Penn ridgeline, the William Penn Memorial Fire Tower mixes postcard views with moonlit lore. The 120-foot stone-and-concrete sentinel opened on October 28, 1939 as a Works Progress Administration project, replacing an earlier lookout near the Gravity Railroad [...]
The corner of 23rd Street and Perkiomen Avenue in Mount Penn has long been a focal point of community life, with a layered history stretching back more than two centuries. One of the earliest known structures at the site was the White Bear [...]
On November 10, 1939, Eugene Deeter bought a ticket to the show in the newly-opened Wilmer and Vincent theatre at 23rd and Filbert Streets in Mount Penn. That theatre was the Majestic. Sixteen years later, Mr. Deeter would take over its management Below: [...]
The Pagoda and the William Penn Memorial Fire Tower are two of three landmarks on Mount Penn. The third is a large peace sign painted on a large rock on Mount Penn facing Reading. In 1967, LeRoy G. Levan and a handful of [...]
