Category: architecture
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Peter Wanner Mansion – Fraught by Failure
Read more: Peter Wanner Mansion – Fraught by FailureThe Peter Wanner Mansion sits at the very east end of Walnut Street in Reading, at the base of Mount Penn. The Victorian mansion was designed by Edward K. Mull and built in 1889 for Peter D. Wanner. Wanner was born on a farm near Kutztown in 1840. Despite his humble roots Wanner was driven…
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Stichter Hardware Company – 505 Penn Street
Read more: Stichter Hardware Company – 505 Penn StreetStichter Hardware was a well-known name amongst Reading merchants for over a century and a half. To get the full picture of the history of this specific site, we need to go back to the Berks County’s colonial period. The lot where this building sits was once owned by Conrad Weiser, who erected the first…
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Shillington Hotel & Bank
Read more: Shillington Hotel & BankThis was originally posted on July 29th, 2024 to Berks Nostalgia’s facebook page, I have since added some more info and am reposting it here. Everyone likes to dump on Reading for its blighted properties (and it’s generally warranted) but lets put Shillington in the spotlight and examine the building on the southwest corner of…
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North 3rd Street Building Collapse
Read more: North 3rd Street Building CollapseOn the evening of Thursday August 22nd, 2024 it was reported by Berks Weekly that a building had collapsed on North 3rd street and that children may have been inside. Firefighters used thermal drone imaging to confirm that no one was buried in the rubble and that the children that had been seen playing inside…
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Summit House Hotel & Gravity Tower
Read more: Summit House Hotel & Gravity TowerSummit House Hotel The Summit House Hotel was once a popular destination along the Gravity Railroad on Mount Penn. Construction of the building began in the summer of 1891. The first mention of the establishment in the Reading Times was on August 7th, 1891 when a small snippit was published in the “City News in…
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Mansion House Hotel – Penn Square
Read more: Mansion House Hotel – Penn SquareOn the southeast corner of 5th and Penn in Reading used to sit the Mansion House Hotel. Its foundation dated back to the late 1700s – the site of the first hotel ever constructed in the city. The Mansion House was once Reading’s largest and most well-known hotel. Many prominent leaders patronized the establishment, including…
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Colonial Trust Company Building
Read more: Colonial Trust Company BuildingThe Colonial Trust Company was established in May 1900. It was formed by a handful of local capitalists including the likes of William McIlvain, John Barbey, Frank Lauer, E. W. Alexander, B. F. Owen, S.B. Keppel, Walter Rigg, and Howard Saylor. They opened for business officially in August 1900 and Louis F. Kraemer was the…
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The Berks County Trust Company
Read more: The Berks County Trust CompanyThe Berks County Trust Company was organized in October of 1900. The founding members accumulated a capitol stock of $125k. The company initially rented J.K. Grant’s new building at southeast corner of Sixth and Washington Streets to operate out of. The Berks County Trust Company was chartered on November 16th, 1900 and commenced operations in…
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“Lizzie Lincoln” House – The Real Story
Read more: “Lizzie Lincoln” House – The Real StoryIf you ask anyone about the “Lizzie Lincoln House”, including the internet, you will get varying results; mostly the regurgitation of conjecture based on legends. I more than anyone love a good ghost story, but what is more important to me than all else is that there be truth behind it. I put in the…
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The Grand Hotel Fire – On this Day 1953
Read more: The Grand Hotel Fire – On this Day 1953The Grand Hotel, on the northwest corner of Seventh and Franklin Streets, and the Weidner and Bucks magazine store on the right show no outward signs of a fire in which one man died, two others were sent to a hospital and $22,500 damage resulted early today. The fire was confined to the interior of…
