{"nrhp_refnum":"79002169","name":"Log House, Hiester House, and Market Annex","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"30 S. 4th St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Reading","county":"Berks County","state":"PA","lat":40.33424088400005,"lon":-75.92990142199994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1979-11-20","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A complex of three structures on a single city lot at a corner one block from the main street in Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania: a circa 1760 log house, a circa 1820 brick house, and an 1895 brick and wood market annex.","why_significant":"The nomination argues that the three contiguous buildings, each from a different period, illustrate a century and a half of architectural change and progressive sophistication in Reading's builders, and that they survived largely unaltered despite urban development. The property also shows the gradual shift of the lot from residential to commercial use.","narrative":"Three buildings on one corner lot in central Reading stand as a record of how the town's building changed between the 1760s and 1895. The oldest is a 1½-storey log house, built as a dwelling of notched pine logs with a stone-and-mortar chinking on a lot granted in 1752, and its hand-hewn summer beam and pegged rafters survive. Around the early 1820s a two-bay brick house of Reading-made brick was built directly behind it, and the two were linked at two levels. The third building, a market annex erected in 1895, uses laminated wood trusses in a near-circular profile with a brick west end and a frame east end. The complex reflects the lot's move from residence to commercial use, and its log, brick and trussed structures show three distinct building traditions side by side.","period_of_significance":"1760-1895","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":null,"vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:13:07.804428-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/79002169.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79002169/8663943a13-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79002169/8663943a13-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Speckled_Hen_Reading.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Speckled_Hen_Reading.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71997926","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log_House,_Hiester_House_and_Market_Annex","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6666808"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/berks-county/log-house-hiester-house-and-market-annex-79002169/"}