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Below: The center of
municipal government of Spring Township is this building along Route
724.
Below: The former site
of WEEU's transmitter and towers is commemorated in the name of this
shopping center in Spring Township.
Below: Wertz's (Red)
Bridge spans the Tulpehocken Creek and is a Spring Township
landmark.
THE FACTS: The
earliest settlers in the area were Welshmen who established a grist
mill along the Wyomissing Creek around 1740. Within months, German
and English immigrants also populated the region which is now Spring
Township.
It was in 1850 when residents of what
was then the sprawling Cumru Township sought to form their own
government in the western reaches of Cumru. The county commissioners
authorized Cumru to be sliced in two and the new township be named
"Spring" after a large freshwater spring there. On
November 23, 1850, Spring Township was officially formed.
THE FIGURES: Spring
Township is Berks County's second largest municipality in population
with an estimated 21,400 residents inside its 19.7 square miles. The
township's topography and demographics range from thickly populated
suburban housing developments to rolling, rural farmland.
THE FUN STUFF: George
Washington may never have slept in Spring Township, but he did pass
through a couple of times. Washington was a surveyor who inspected
the Union Canal, and it's recorded that in 1794, he stopped for
refreshments at Dr. Peter Palm's house in what is now Spring
Township. Dr Palm was a surgeon for the Continental Army at the
Battle of Brandywine.
Wyomissing, West Lawn, Wyomissing Hills,
Sinking Spring, and West Reading boroughs were all once part of
Spring Township until they became independent.
The mining and refining of iron
ore was an early industry in Spring Township. In 1847 the
"Wheatfield Mines," "Eureka Ore" and "Seitzinger
Ore" operations were among the ironmaking facilities
listed in the township.
Present "villages" inside
Spring Township's boundaries include Lincoln Park, Whitfield, Spring
Manor, Montrose Manor, and West Wyomissing. But how many residents
recall places such as "Nappyville" and "Rhubarb
Valley?" And, how many know where "Whiskey Ditch" was
or how it got its name?
It is officially Wertz's Bridge, and it
was once painted white. But everybody calls that ca. 1867,
204-foot covered bridge the "Red Bridge." The span is a
landmark in Tulpehocken Creek Valley County Park, which spreads over
acres of Spring Township countryside.
Another major landmark in Spring
Township is the Berks Campus of Penn State University, which
moved to its present location in 1972.
Thanks to WEEU's Charles J. Adams III for help
in compiling this material.
34 North Fourth Street, Reading, PA 19601
Phone: 610-376-7335 Fax: 610-376-7756
E-mail: weeu@weeu.com
