READING, Pa, city, county-seat of Berks County, on the Schuylkill River and the Schuylkill Canal, and on the Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia and Reading railroads, about 58 miles northwest of Philadelphia, and 54 miles east of Harrisburg. Its area is about 10 square miles. Reading was first settled by English colonists, sons of William Penn, and was named after Reading in England. In 1748 it was laid out, and in 1783 was incor porated as a borough. It was chartered as a city in 1847. It is in an agricultural region. It has extensive manufacturing and commercial interests. Immediately east of the city is Mount Penn, and south of it is Neversink Mountain. Electric railways encircle both mountains. Mount Penn is 1,140 feet above sea-level. The chief industries are connected with iron and steel productions. The chief industrial estab lishments are railroad shops, machine shops, foundries, optical goods, builders' hardware, paper mills, breweries, knitting mills, hosiery mills, hat factories, works, cigar fac tories and iron acrd steel- works. The capital invested in manufacturing in 1909 (Federal census) was $45,334,000 and the average annual output was valued at $53,232,000. The iron and steel industries had the largest invested capital and about one-fourth of the output. There were, in 1910, over 500 manufacturing estab lishments, representing about 100 different in dust,ries. The principal public buildings of
Reading are public library, Y. M. C. A., Boys' High School and the churches. The charitable institutions are Saint Catherine's Orphan Asylum (girls), Saint Paul's orphanage (boys), the Home for Friendless Children, House of the Good Shepherd, Saint Joseph's, the Reading, and the Homoeopathic hospitals. The educa tional institutions are the Schuylkill Seminary, two high schools and a business school.
The city has an excellent park system cov ering in all nearly 200 acres. The city is gov erned by a commission, a mayor and four councilmen. The members of the board of education are chosen by popular election. Dur ing there w as an enrolment of more than 15,000 children, the total expenses for the year being $550,000. The annual municipal ex penditures for maintenance and operation are about $1,052,000; the chief items being, for streets and public improvements, $190,000; park and public property, $150,000; public safety, $140,000; public affairs, $125,000; accounts and finance, $25,000. The waterworks cost the city originally $1,937,762. They are owned and operated by the municipality. In 1867, 1869, 1914 and 1915 the city boundaries were enlarged. Pop. (1783), when it became a borough, 2,100; (1847), when charted, 12,000; (1900) 78,961; (1910) 90,071; (1910) 110,000.