Red Men Hall | |
 The front of Red Men Hall | |
   | |
| Location | 831–833 Walnut Street Reading, Pennsylvania |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 40°20′21″N75°55′21″W / 40.33917°N 75.92250°W |
| Built | 1900 |
| Architect | Muhlenberg Brothers |
| Architectural style | American Craftsman, Renaissance Revival |
| NRHP reference No. | 00000843 [1] |
| Added to NRHP | July 27, 2000 |
The Red Men Hall, later known as Century Hall, is a historic four-story building located in Reading, Pennsylvania.
The building originally served as a meeting place for the local lodge or "wigwam" of the Improved Order of Red Men. The Red Men are a fraternal organization which imitate perceived Native American customs. However, this location consisted exclusively of German Americans. [2] The organization had numerous chapters in Pennsylvania beginning in the nineteenth century. [3]
Constructed by the Red Men in 1900, the four-story brick facade building displays American Craftsman style architectural designs with Renaissance Revival elements, and includes decorative tiles by Henry Chapman Mercer. Later, the structure served as a rental hall called Century Hall, capitalizing on the building being built at the turn of the century.
The National Register of Historic Places added the structure in 2000. The building now consists of 15 low-income senior housing units. [4]
Berks County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 428,849. The county seat is Reading, the fourth-most populous city in the state.
The Improved Order of Red Men is a fraternal organization established in North America in 1834. It claims direct descent from the colonial era Sons of Liberty. Their rituals and regalia are modeled after those assumed by men of the era to be used by Native Americans. Despite the name, the order was formed solely by, and for, white men. This whites-only rule was part of their bylaws until 1974, when the all-white clause was eliminated. Their current position is that they are now open to people of all ethnic backgrounds. In 1935 the organization claimed a membership of about half a million, but it has now declined to a little more than 15,000.
St. Anthony Hall or the Fraternity of Delta Psi is an American fraternity and literary society. Its first chapter was founded at Columbia University on January 17, 1847, the feast day of Saint Anthony the Great. The fraternity is a non–religious, nonsectarian organization. In 1879, William Raimond Baird's American College Fraternities characterized the fraternity as having "the reputation of being the most secret of all the college societies." A modern writer says the fraternity is "a cross between Skull and Bones and a Princeton eating club, with a large heaping of Society and more than a dash of Animal House." Nearly all chapters of St. Anthony Hall are coed.
Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site in southeastern Berks County, near Elverson, Pennsylvania, is an example of an American 19th century rural iron plantation, whose operations were based around a charcoal-fired cold-blast iron blast furnace. The significant restored structures include the furnace group (blast furnace, water wheel, blast machinery, cast house and charcoal house), as well as the ironmaster's house, a company store, the blacksmith's shop, a barn and several worker's houses.
The Fisher Fine Arts Library was the primary library of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia from 1891 to 1962. The red sandstone, brick-and-terra-cotta Venetian Gothic giant, part fortress and part cathedral, was designed by Philadelphia architect Frank Furness (1839–1912).
GoggleWorks Center for the Arts is a community art and cultural resource center located in Reading, Pennsylvania. The mission of the GoggleWorks is “to transform lives through unique interactions with art.”
The Gruber Wagon Works is a historic industrial facility on Red Bridge Road in Bern Township, Pennsylvania, United States. Built about 1882, it is an extremely rare example of a fully outfitted 19th-century wagon manufacturing facility. Originally located in nearby Pleasant Valley, it was moved in 1976 to its present location in Tulpehocken Creek Park to make way for a flood control project. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977. It now serves as part of a county open-air museum.
Paul Amos Batholomew (1883–1973) was an architect in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. From the beginning of his practice, he received a variety of high-profile commissions for both residential and non-residential structures, mainly in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. His buildings typically had historicist facades, with neoclassical or Italianate ornamentation covering a modern framework. Only in the 1950s, toward the end of his career, he created buildings that were purely modern in design. During the Great Depression, a particularly trying time for architects, he received the commission to design Norvelt, which was a new town created as part of President Roosevelt's New Deal policies.
Roosevelt Hall (1903–1907) is an immense Beaux Arts-style building housing the National War College on Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC, USA. The original home of the Army War College (1907–1946), it is now designated a National Historical Landmark (1972) and listed on the National Register of Historic Places (1972).
McMillan Hall is a building on the campus of Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania, United States. Built in 1793, it is the only surviving building from Washington Academy. It is the eighth-oldest academic building in the United States that is still in use for its original academic purpose and is the oldest surviving college building west of the Allegheny Mountains.
The Keim Homestead is a historic farm on Boyer Road in Pike Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1753 for Jacob Keim and his wife Magdalena Hoch on land given to the couple by her father. Jacob was the son of Johannes Keim, who immigrated from Germany in 1689 and scouted the Pennsylvania countryside for land that was similar in richness to the soil from the Black Forest of Germany. He thought he found it and returned to Germany, married his wife, Katarina. They came to America in 1707. Keim originally built a log structure for his family's housing and later a stone home along Keim Road in Pike Township. The main section of the Jacob and Magdelena Keim house on Boyer Road was built in two phases and it is, "replete with early German construction features ... including[an] extremely original second floor Chevron door." The exterior building material (cladding) is limestone. The finishings and trimmings are mostly original to the house; relatively unusual in a home of this period.
The Pagoda is a novelty building, built atop the south end of Mount Penn overlooking Reading, Pennsylvania, United States. It has been a symbol of the city for more than a century.
The Stephenson Grand Army of the Republic Memorial, also known as Dr. Benjamin F. Stephenson, is a public artwork in Washington, D.C. honoring Dr. Benjamin F. Stephenson, founder of the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization for Union veterans. The memorial is sited at Indiana Plaza, located at the intersection of 7th Street, Indiana Avenue, and Pennsylvania Avenue NW in the Penn Quarter neighborhood. The bronze figures were sculpted by J. Massey Rhind, a prominent 20th-century artist. Attendees at the 1909 dedication ceremony included President William Howard Taft, Senator William Warner, and hundreds of Union veterans.
St. Anthony Hall House is a historic fraternity house located in the University City neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is the Delta chapter house for the social and literary Fraternity of Delta Psi for the University of Pennsylvania. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
The Henry Fisher House is an historic, American home that is located in Oley Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania.
The Hottenstein Mansion, also known as Huddestystettle, is an American historic home which is located in Maxatawny Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania.
The Kemp-Frieden House is an historic American inn and tavern building that is located in Maxatawny Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania.
The Kissling Farm is a historic farm complex and national historic district located in Robesonia, Heidelberg Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.
Muhlenberg Brothers was one of the dominant architecture/engineering firms in Reading, Pennsylvania during the first half of the 20th century, founded by a member of the Muhlenberg political dynasty.
The Berks County Trust Company is a historic building in downtown Reading, Pennsylvania. Originally constructed in 1909, the six-story building was home to a bank known as the Berks County Trust Company and was the second largest bank branch in Berks County. The building still contains the original 1909 bank vault from the York Safe and Lock Company used by the building's eponymous bank. The building had additions built onto it in 1923, 1964 and 1984.
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