Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 36% of U.S. towns · #892 of 1,035 in Pennsylvania. What drives it
Below: 6 old photos and papers, maps from 1908 on, and old-book passages.
More historic than 36% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Reading Township is more historic than 36% of U.S. towns, #892 of 1,035 in Pennsylvania. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
Pennsylvania towns list about as much on the Register as the country (a typical Pennsylvania town has 2.1 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Reading Township’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (25% of Pennsylvania towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
Founding year: our sources. Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Three other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Reading Township. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Reading Township.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Reading Township yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Reading Township ( RED-ing) is a township in Adams County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 5,780 at the 2010 census.
Its population held steady between the last two censuses: 5,780 in 2010, 5,799 in 2020.
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Passages that mention Reading Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Jobn Blake offered a reward of $10 for the return to him of a seventeenyears-old negro girl, who ran away from his home in Reading Township, three miles from Berlin, November 21, 1803. During the high water of June, 1825, Jacob Hollinger’s wife and three children, of Reading Township, were drowned at Walsh’s mill, about two miles from Berlin. About the same time Samuel Hilt, engaged on the new bridge at that place, was also drowned.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In the archiveViews in vicinity of Reading. Reading Road around Flying Hill
In the archiveTopographic view of the city of Reading Pa. 1881
In the archiveSoldiers Monument
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey3 decades in the archive, from the 1870s to the 1900s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Reading Township’s page.
Retake this view · +15Nobody well known was born in Reading Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
Reading Township is more historic than 36% of U.S. towns, #892 of 1,035 in Pennsylvania. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
15% of Reading Township’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±7.1 points), against a typical 18% for a Pennsylvania town; the median home was built in 1987.
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From the Library of Congress (6), U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
1873
1873
1900