Below: The West Reading
Main Street Foundation aims to "dress up" the West Reading
business district. These banners now flutter above Penn Avenue
sidewalks.
Below: The clock tower of
the Reading Hospital and Medical Center is a West Reading landmark.
Below: One of the biggest
and busiest hospitals in Pennsylvania is located in West
Reading. The Reading Hospital and Medical Center is seen in
this early architect's model prior to its construction!
Below: Long before the
"cloverleaf" ramps of the West Shore Bypass were built,
the West Reading end of the Penn Street Bridge (seen here in 1910
when it was a steel span) was the site of many businesses and
factories.
Below: West Reading's
Borough Hall was recently expanded to become one of the most
handsome municipal buildings in Berks County.
Below: The specialty shops,
cafes, and restaurants of Penn Avenue in West Reading are set in a
lovely small-town atmosphere.
THE FACTS: History
tells us there were settlers in what is now West
Reading as early as the 1730s.
These Welshman kept to themselves, and the hilly land west
of the Schuylkill from the growing town of Reading didn't experience
its first spurt of growth until around 1817, when a covered bridge
carried traffic over the river and on a west-bound toll road through
the tiny village. Tolls on that turnpike, incidentally,
weren't lifted until 1905. Shortly after the road was built,
the landmark West Reading Hotel (razed in 1964 for the shopping
center parking lot) was opened, and became the centerpiece for
another period of growth.
Most of the land remained as farms, with much of it owned
by William Leinbach. In 1864, Leinbach sold his farm to a chap
named Frederick Frill. Sometime around 1873, Frill sold the
first lots of what was to become West Reading.
The first of the town's rowhomes went up that year on
Franklin Street between 3rd and 4th avenues.
On March 18, 1907, West Reading became a borough.
THE FIGURES: According
to the latest estimates available, some 4,023 folks reside in the .6
square mile borough of West Reading.
Interestingly, that computes to 7,070.3 people per square
mile, a figure second only to the city of Reading for population
density.
THE FUN STUFF: West
Reading was once a very industrial town. Large factories
churned out everything from soap to sausages, bonnets to baked
goods, and some of the finest sheep and grass shears made in
America.
There was also a large brickyard in town. In fact,
on the site of the present Penn View Motel once stood the mansion of
brickmaker George Eckert. That huge home was later the
barracks of the Pennsylvania State Police.
Many of the borough's industries stood on land which was
consumed in the mid-1950s by the "cloverleaf" ramps of the
West Shore Bypass. The mix of businesses on Penn Avenue has
changed over the years (there was once a miniature golf course on
the north side of 3rd and Penn Avenue), but the borough has remained
a prosperous, progressive, and charming place to live, work, and
shop.
Most Berks Countians probably don't know that there was
once a proposal to move the county courthouse to West Reading.
A grand plan by west side industrialists in 1928 called for a
stately structure to be built at the western end of the Penn Street
Bridge. Traffic would loop around the building and into the
borough.
A model of the proposed courthouse was displayed at
various venues, but the plans faced one major hurdle. It seems
that Reading was the county seat. In order for the
courthouse to be moved to West Reading, the city and borough
would have to merge.
A 1929 petition to have the city annex the borough
fizzled, as did the idea to build the grandiose courthouse in West
Reading.
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
