Wyomissing Area High School - Colophon Yearbook (Wyomissing, PA)

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COLOPI-ION The Planning and Development of Wyomissing N 1896 the Reading Suburban Real Estate Company, organ- ized under the direction of Thomas P. Merritt and Mathew Mengel, purchased several large farms west of the city of Reading for the purpose of a suburban real estate develop- ment. Their land was that portion of Wyomissing bounded by Trent and Evans Avenues, the Lebanon Valley Railroad and the Wyomissing Creek. This company proceeded to lay out streets and lots in the proposed community and to plant 25,000 silver maple trees for shade. Later when skilled engineers were employed for grad- ing the land and plotting the streets, they experienced con- siderable difficulty because of these numerous trees. Streets could not be properly leveled without destroying trees and therefore many peculiar hills and terraces may still be noticed in some sections of the borough,-for instance the curve in Wyomissing Boulevard, at the South East corner of Cleveland Avenue. A large poplar, seven feet in diameter, stood there and engineers built around it, rather than destroy this magnifi- cent landmark. However, it was but a few years until a bolt of lightning destroyed it. Further east on Wyomissing Boulevard was a huge cave at the quarry causing a curve at that point. Messrs. Charles and Milton Mory developed the remaining eastern portion of Wyomissing, east of Trent Avenue, but later Page Eleven

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COLOPHON 5fQYf Ff'1g7iJf 'if fklufi-74WE'.TE?f if 1 FACULTY ADELAIDE WANNER Music EMMA NEELY Home Economics fy aww' F' R, T. MILFORD English MAX POYER Science A. M. BIEHL Geography cmd Arithmetic HAMILTON CROWELL French , MMM T Page Ten

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COLOPHON -KAN Wyomissing Boulevard and Penn Avenue, 1890 sold out to the Delta Real Estate Company, which continued the work. lt is interesting to note here that our present borough engineer, Mr. lrwin Hater, was employed by the Morys and has continued his work in Wyomissing ever since, becoming Borough Engineer in l9l7. The tirst real impetus to the development ot the borough was given by Messrs. Ferdinand Thun and Henry Ianssen. ln l896 they established a machine shop along the railroad which enormously advanced the textile industry. The tirst buildings erected were the hotel, opposite the town hall, and a small - - Page Twelve