There is more drama coming out of Wyomissing Borough this week, but this time it is not about the mall. On Tuesday May 12th, Wyomissing Borough Council voted 4-2 to approve a conditional use request for a development project at 915 Penn Avenue. Currently the property is a parking lot, but the owner wants to develop a 30-unit apartment building on the site. Before I get into the controversy the council’s decision created for the site, lets dive back in time, because one thing is for certain, this prime corner at Penn Ave and Park Road could not have always been a parking lot.

To my surprise, not only was this location once the spot of a popular inn, it was, somewhat ironically, also the birthplace of Borough of Wyomissing. Around the turn of the 20th century Wyomissing was a developing community. What is now the Penn Avenue / route 422 had always been a major corridor west from Reading to Harrisburg, but this area was somewhat new due to Ferdinand Thun and Henry Janssen recently acquiring adjoining land to construct their textile operation. This building, called the “Textile Inn” was constructed in 1903 by Marx Reimer, a German-born immigrant who got himself involved in real estate and construction in the budding community. No growing community could be established without a watering hole and place for lodgers to stay, and its proximity to the Textile Machine Works made it a particularly convenient place for workers to gather for a drink after a hard shift. Beginning in 1904, local newspapers began mentioning the Textile Inn as a reference point in the young community.

By 1904 the community decided it had grown to the point where the formation of its own Borough was a necessary next step. The October 24th, 1904 Reading Times reported that, “the citizens of Wyomissing held a well attended meeting at the [brand new] Textile Inn and discussed the advisability of incorporating into a borough.” Wyomissing Industries founder Ferdinand Thun spoke at that meeting as to why the borough should be incorporated, “one of our chief grievances is that many of our streets in upper Wyomissing are not kept in repair and are simply left to themselves. They are in dilapidated condition and are very dangerous at night. Neither the [Spring] Township nor any other government can be looked to for repairs and for the amount of money spent by us in taxation we receive hardly any returns.” He explained that 124 homes currently sat in Wyomissing, a one-third increase from only two years prior, citing the growth and furthering their complaints that their significant tax revenue for Spring Township wasn’t being spent on them. Thun also set an expectation for a brand new school district, “In the way of schools we have practically nothing. We send our children to school in West Reading, the distance being too far, and the standard of education is not what it should be. Besides, the schools of West Reading are too crowded. We would fare much better had we a government of our own.” At that time, 79 children of school age would be in a prospective new Wyomissing School District. In another ironic twist, we know that Wyomissing and West Reading would end up consolidating school districts over six decades later in 1969 in an effort at the time to unburden taxpayers, but I digress.

Incorporation would not come for another two years, and on in July of 1906, the people of Wyomissing voted in an election for their very first Borough officers inside the Textile Inn. Bertrand Farr, local flower grower, would be the Borough’s first mayor. Marx Reimer, who built the structure which became so essential to the borough’s founding, served on the first school board. Ferdinand Thun was elected a three-year term to council.

Two years later another important vote took place at the Textile Inn – Wyomissing decided to make a loan of $40,000 to construct their own town hall, a building that was constructed on the southeast corner of Wyomissing Boulevard and Penn Avenue. With that decision marked the end of borough affairs being conducted within the walls of the Textile Inn, but it continued to be an integral part of the community, in both a commercial and residential capacity for another half-century. By the 1940s the property was converted into apartments with store space on the main level and had been zoned a commercial district since 1926 – an appropriate thing to note when we shortly make our way back to the present.

The Textile Inn was razed in 1951 along with five homes to its west when Van Reed Road was rerouted through much of where it stood, becoming what we call today “Park Road“. Marx Reimer lived just long enough to see his first endeavor fade into the history books, dying in February of 1951.

Much of where the Textile Inn and the other residences stood has been a parking lot since, first serving workers of Wyomissing Industries and later shoppers of the Vanity Fair Outlet Complex. Today it serves as overflow parking for both businesses along the Ave and the Wyomissing Square complex to its north that sits where Textile Machine Works once did.

This is about to change, as Wyomissing’s council just approved variance to their own zoning and parking regulations that allow the current owner to build 30 residential apartment units on the site and providing only 32 spaces for residents; significantly less than the 45 spaces required. Small business owners in adjacent properties came to the May 12th meeting in opposition of this, mainly citing concerns over parking. Their clients use the lot to patronize their business, so not only will they lose significant off-street parking, the street parking will be even further strained by potential new residents. This prospective development also is not mixed-use, on what has been zoned a commercial area for a century, and the four council members did not give any public explanations as to why they disregarded the Borough’s own stipulations.

The Borough Council meets and makes decisions at their Borough Hall in the late Ferdinand Thun’s mansion, a far departure from its humble beginnings in the old Textile Inn, despite only being a block apart. One can’t help but wonder what those pioneering founders would think of what their creation has become.