Another quality program was sponsored on Thursday, May 7, by the Hamburg Area Historical Society, with their invitation to Corrie Crupi, Chairman of the Board of Pagoda-Skyline, Inc., to come to the Hamburg Area High School to talk about the history of the Pagoda and Skyline Drive area.
Attendees were treated to a walk down memory lane or to some interesting facts about local history. Crupi has been a member of the all-volunteer Board of Pagoda-Skyline, Inc., for 24 years. She explained that she does presentations for groups as her “way to educate people… let them know the many wonders hidden in the mountain and why it’s so precious to me.”
Crupi, a graduate of Central Catholic High School in Reading, grew up in the city of Reading and “headed to the mountain” to escape the concrete and macadam of her neighborhood. She was unaware of the complex history of the area until elderly neighbors told her stories of days gone by.
Crupi described how she was “hooked” on the history when at age 14 she looked up the Fire Tower at the library and learned about its past. On her own, she worked on cleaning up the area and digging for artifacts. She found the volunteer group, already devoted to restoring and preserving the area, in 1971, and started almost immediately as their secretary.
“Taking care of a mountain is an every day job” is how Crupi described the level of responsibility of the Pagoda-Skyline fourteen-member board, which was incorporated in 1970. She said that volunteers regularly patrol the area, cleaning up trash and alternating with police to discourage people who try to use the area inappropriately.
The volunteers, through fundraising and actual labor, have renovated the Pagoda and Fire Tower, as well as repairing the guard rails and stone walls along Skyline Drive. Volunteers also work in the Pagoda Gift Shoppe which is a source for hundreds of items related to the Pagoda and Berks County, and the Cafe’ that focuses on locally-made treats.
Crupi’s slide presentation was filled with old drawings and photographs from the days when resorts and a gravity railroad were tourist destinations on the mountain. She described how the Pagoda was built for $50,000 to be a resort but was never opened. The bank repossessed the building and gifted the City of Reading with the structure in 1911.
Meeting attendee, Peggy Marquette of Windsor Township, Wyomissing High School Class of 1942, talked to the group about her memories of the area. She elaborated on Crupi’s discussion of the historic Duryea Hill Climb by describing her experience at age 18 of riding in a car from 1908 and eating dinner afterward in the now non-existent Tower Hotel.
“I’d like to invite you to the Pagoda,” stated Crupi, and called the current experience for visitors to the area as one of “peace and quiet.”
She is the author of the 1998 book, “The Pagoda” which she is currently re-writing as “The History of the Pagoda, the Tower, and Skyline Drive,” and should be released this summer. For more information about the area or to volunteer, call 610-375-6399, or visit the website, www.pagodaskyline.org.
The Hamburg Area Historical Society will meet at the Port Clinton Peanut Shop at 6 p.m. on June 4 and proceed to the Northern Berks/Southern Schuylkill Historical Society at 6:30 p.m.
The annual picnic is at St. Michael’s Church at 5:30 p.m. on July 9, with a presentation on “Rail Lines of the East Penn Valley” by Jim Schlegel.
The Historical Society building is open on Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. at 102 State Street, Hamburg. Call 610-562-3664 for more information.
