Organized in 1814, the Farmers National Bank was Reading’s oldest and longest lasting financial institution. In 1817 they purchased the old Federal Inn which was located at 445 Penn Street. The Federal Inn was constructed in 1763 by Adam Witman and was one of Reading’s first taverns. President George Washington spent one night there on October 1st, 1794 on a journey to Carlisle to lead troops in the Whiskey Rebellion, which had reached climax that summer and was winding down.

Farmers National utilized the stone Federal Inn building until they razed it in 1925 to build the current structure. It would cost $500,000 to construct, which would equate to about $9.2 million today. The front Penn Street facing exterior is constructed completely of granite. The cornerstone was laid on March 20th, 1926, which included a time capsule that has coins from the year 1814, minutes of the board meetings at which the construction of the building was approved, a complete list of the officers, directors and employees of the bank at that time and copies of all of the local newspapers on that day. Theoretically those items should still be there.

The Great Depression marked tough times for most of the United States’ financial institutions. In February of 1933 the Farmers National Bank merged with Reading Nation and Penn National banks. George Horst, of Nolde & Horst Knitting Mills and Ferdinand Thun of Wyomissing Industries, who were ironically business nemeses, were put at the helm of the institution in an attempt to save it. As a result the Union National Bank was formed and took over the building. On September 6th, 1941 the assets of Union were purchased by the Berks County Trust Company, who then became American Bank in 1964. In 1980 American Bank announced their “Project Keystone” which renovated the other buildings between 431-449 Penn Street into their corporate office space. This building continued to be utilized as a banking room.

American Bank merged with Central Penn National bank in 1983 and became Meridian Bancorp. They continued to utilized the buildings until they sold in 1995 to Citizens Bank. Citizens sold the properties in 2003 to Preferred Real Estate Investment Inc., but continued to lease just the main banking room for operations. In 2013 the City of Reading took ownership of the structure, and for a short amount of time in the late 2010s utilized this structure as a station for the Reading Police Department. It has been abandoned since.

Its future is in limbo as the City is now tearing down the building directly to its west, with Reading’s Historical Architectural Review board attempting to make them save the facade. According to an August 28th, WFMZ article, saving the facade of the neighboring structure could cost the City $1 million, which Community Development Director David Barr was quoted as stating, “It really boils down to, ‘Is this expense worth retention of that façade, or is that money in a limited budget better put toward the retention of roofing primarily at the Farmers National Bank building?‘”

The Philadelphia-based developer that was in contract to purchase these properties has indeed backed out, allegedly because the city razing the 431-433 buildings negated potential investment credits the developer would have received for renovating historic structures. My suggestion to the City would be to scrap luxury projects like the controversial $600,000 City Park ice skating rink and reprioritize the investments you made over a decade ago.

Farmers National Bank building in Reading