Berks County
Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Formed March 11, 1752 from parts of Chester, Lancaster and Philadelphia counties. Named for Berkshire, England. The county seat of Reading was made a borough in 1783 and a city in 1847. County's early iron works gave rise to Pennsylvania's iron industry.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Formed in 1752 from parts of three older counties and named for Berkshire in England, this region centered on the town of Reading. Its early iron forges and furnaces, drawing on rich local ore, helped launch what would become Pennsylvania's mighty iron industry. Reading grew from a colonial borough into a thriving 19th-century city built on that industrial foundation.
Why it matters
Berks County's colonial ironworks seeded the industry that made Pennsylvania a cornerstone of American manufacturing.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Reading Railroad Massacre
Reading, PA · est. 1993
The economic depression of the 1870s brought wage cuts and rising anger across America's railroads, and in July 1877 that anger erupted into the nation's first great national strike. In Reading, workers whose pay had been slashed blocked the tracks, and on July 23 militia fired into the unarmed crowd, killing ten people before federal troops moved in to reopen the line. The bloodshed here was one episode in a wave of upheaval that swept the country's rail network that summer.
Skew Bridge
Reading, PA · est. 1951
By the 1850s Pennsylvania was crisscrossed with railroads hungry for engineering that could carry tracks over roads and streams at awkward angles. A skew bridge solves that problem by setting its arch on a slant, forcing every stone to be cut on a precise spiral so the whole span holds without a central keystone. Designed by Richard Osborn for the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad in 1857, this stone arch was long admired as one of the finest examples of the form in the country.
Duryea Drive
Reading, PA · est. 1951
This winding road from City Park up to Reading's landmark Pagoda takes its name from Charles E. Duryea, an automobile pioneer who used its slopes from 1900 to 1907 as a proving ground for his cars. Duryea built one of America's first successful gasoline automobiles, and the hill let him test the machines' power against the very grades that stymied early motorcars.
Reading
West Reading, PA · est. 1948
Marked from the west bank of the Schuylkill, Reading was laid out in 1748 at the direction of Thomas Penn and made the seat of Berks County in 1752. German-speaking settlers gave the town its lasting Pennsylvania-Dutch character, and after incorporation as a borough in 1783 it grew into a thriving industrial community. Ironworks and manufacturing would define its economy for generations.