Reading: Pretzels, Rails, and Berks County
Reading was founded in 1748 by the sons of William Penn and named for the English town of Reading in Berkshire. The Reading Railroad, chartered in 1833 to haul anthracite coal from Schuylkill County to Philadelphia, became one of the wealthiest corporations in 19th-century America and survives in popular culture as one of the four railroads on the Monopoly board. The Reading Company eventually went bankrupt and was folded into Conrail in 1976.
The city calls itself the Pretzel Capital of the World, a claim rooted in the concentration of commercial pretzel bakeries in Berks and surrounding counties. Dieffenbach's, Unique, Tom Sturgis, and several other Pennsylvania Dutch brands trace their origins to the region. The GoggleWorks Center for the Arts, housed in a former optical factory near downtown, now operates as a community arts space with galleries, studios, and a cinema.
The Pagoda on Mount Penn, a seven-story Japanese-style structure built in 1908 as a luxury resort that never opened, has served as a Reading landmark for over a century. The city sits in a valley surrounded by ridges, with Neversink Mountain rising opposite Mount Penn. FirstEnergy Stadium hosts the Reading Fightin Phils, the AA affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies.
Sites that serve Reading as part of their escort coverage appear in the Escortservice.com directory. The platform is a directory only; it does not book meetings, verify identities, or mediate between parties. The site is restricted to users aged 21 and over.
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Reading was founded in 1748 by the sons of William Penn and named for the English town of Reading in Berkshire. The Reading Railroad, chartered in 1833 to haul anthracite coal from Schuylkill County to Philadelphia, became one of the wealthiest corporations in 19th-century America and survives in popular culture as one of the four railroads on the Monopoly board. The Reading Company eventually went bankrupt and was folded into Conrail in 1976.
The city calls itself the Pretzel Capital of the World, a claim rooted in the concentration of commercial pretzel bakeries in Berks and surrounding counties. Dieffenbach's, Unique, Tom Sturgis, and several other Pennsylvania Dutch brands trace their origins to the region. The GoggleWorks Center for the Arts, housed in a former optical factory near downtown, now operates as a community arts space with galleries, studios, and a cinema.
The Pagoda on Mount Penn, a seven-story Japanese-style structure built in 1908 as a luxury resort that never opened, has served as a Reading landmark for over a century. The city sits in a valley surrounded by ridges, with Neversink Mountain rising opposite Mount Penn. FirstEnergy Stadium hosts the Reading Fightin Phils, the AA affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies.
Sites that serve Reading as part of their escort coverage appear in the Escortservice.com directory. The platform is a directory only; it does not book meetings, verify identities, or mediate between parties. The site is restricted to users aged 21 and over.
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