Friday, May 23, 2008

the pagoda

During a long rain delay at Sunday's baseball game in Reading, I drove up Mt. Penn to the Reading Pagoda gift shop. This unusual decal postcard shows two Reading landmarks. The Pagoda is now celebrating its 100th anniversary. A local entrepreneur built the Pagoda on top of Mt. Penn in 1908, with the idea of making it a resort. That never happened. For the most part the bizarre structure, built of concrete and tiles, was not used for much of anything. For a period long ago, Morse code signals were flashed from the Pagoda to alert townspeople to fires and to broadcast the results of events, such as the World Series.