Category: 1950s
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Stoudt’s Restaurant
Read more: Stoudt’s RestaurantStoudt’s Restaurant was located at 602 Penn Avenue in Sinking Spring (now the 4000 block and a parking lot). It was opened in 1951 and owned by Edward and Ada Stoudt. Edward’s son, also named Edward, worked for his father starting in 1960, and eventually split off and opened Stoudt’s Black Angus; which is still…
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Furlow’s Food Market
Read more: Furlow’s Food MarketFurlow’s Food Market was located at 3940 Penn Avenue (then 542 Penn Ave) in Sinking Spring. It was owned by Rufus Furlow and Morton Heim. It was opened in late 1927 as the September 14th 1927 Reading Times clipping below foreshadows. I could not find a hard date on when the market closed, though Morton’s obituary…
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Kurtz’s Drug Store – Penn Ave – Sinking Spring
Read more: Kurtz’s Drug Store – Penn Ave – Sinking SpringAlmost a year ago I did a then and now post on the Stitzer Apartments, located at the corner Penn Ave & Woodrow Ave. The building still exists and looks almost exactly the same, yet many stores have come and gone since the photo above was taken. Many seemed to remember Kurtz’s Drug Store/Pharmacy back…
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Reading Municipal Memorial Stadium
Read more: Reading Municipal Memorial StadiumMunicipal Stadium hosted it’s first baseball game in 1951. On March 28, 1945, Reading City Council voted unanimously to purchase 27 acres of ground known as Cathedral Heights at a cost of $64,491 for the purpose of building a municipal stadium. In 1947 the grading of the land began and by 1949 the initial stages…
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Shillington Shopping Center
Read more: Shillington Shopping CenterThe Shillington Shopping Center has been around for many decades. It is located along Lancaster Avenue in Shillington. Pictured below is the Food Fair and W. T. Grant Co. stores from the 1950s. Did you ever shop here? The only thing that appears the remain the same in the past 60 years are the entrance…
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Berks County Christmas – Day 22 – Railroad Travel
Read more: Berks County Christmas – Day 22 – Railroad TravelBefore planes were the main means of traveling during the holidays, many people took trains. If you traveled as a passenger on the Reading Railroad, it would have been in a car like the one pictured below: Did you ever use the railroads to travel for the holidays?
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Berks County Christmas – Day 17 – 1950s Whitner’s
Read more: Berks County Christmas – Day 17 – 1950s Whitner’sThis is an older image of Whitner’s. Dated sometime around 1950. Check out those Christmas Tree’s on the 2nd floor ledge!
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Berks County Christmas – Day 12 – 6th and Penn
Read more: Berks County Christmas – Day 12 – 6th and PennThe Twelfth day of Christmas – Cars pack Penn Street between 5th and 6th streets in the 1950s, as shoppers look for Christmas gifts. If there’s one thing hasn’t changed in the past 60+ years, its the swarm of shopping during the holiday season!
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Berks County Christmas – Day 11 – Shopping Scene
Read more: Berks County Christmas – Day 11 – Shopping SceneEleventh Day of Christmas – The heat is on, only a few more weeks to finish up your Christmas shopping. Enjoy this 1950s scene of bustling shoppers outside of Pomeroy’s.
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Berks County Christmas – Day 8 – Fresh Snow
Read more: Berks County Christmas – Day 8 – Fresh SnowBelow is an aerial photograph taken over the City of Reading after a snow fall in the 1950s.