{"nrhp_refnum":"84003457","name":"Biery's Port Historic District","other_names":["Catasauqua"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly bounded by Pineapple, Front, Race, and Mulberry Sts.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Catasauqua","county":"Lehigh County","state":"PA","lat":40.649645085500055,"lon":-75.46955026490139,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1984-08-09","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Commerce","Exploration/Settlement"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Biery's Port Historic District is a roughly V-shaped historic district in the southern quarter of Catasauqua, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, set on a hill sloping down to Catasauqua Creek. It is made up mainly of mid to late nineteenth century residences and commercial and industrial buildings laid out on a grid of streets.","why_significant":"The district is regarded as the oldest part of Catasauqua and an early home of the anthracite iron industry in America. Its buildings include some of the town's first residential and commercial structures, and it remained the town's commercial core into the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The nomination also points to its early mill, ferry, canal-era tavern and bridge as the basis of its local importance.","narrative":"Biery's Port is a dense cluster of mid to late nineteenth century houses, shops and industrial buildings in the southern quarter of Catasauqua, on a slope running down to Catasauqua Creek. Its oldest houses are stone Federal-style dwellings built by Frederick Biery between 1801 and 1825 along Race Street. The district began with a grist mill erected by David Desher about 1852 at the confluence of the creek and the Lehigh River, which Biery later acquired in 1801. After the Lehigh Canal was built through the settlement around 1830, Biery added a tavern and a home near a chain bridge across the Lehigh, and the place took the name Biery's Port. The district became the commercial heart of the town as the anthracite iron industry developed nearby in the 1840s and 1850s. Most buildings are two to two-and-one-half stories, brick or wood frame, and retain much of their nineteenth-century character.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Federal; Italianate; Second Empire","criteria":["A"],"status_note":"Altered; limited aluminum siding and brick coating, and new roofs; much of the nineteenth-century character is retained","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:33.51448-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/84003457.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84003457/af8680f9b4-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84003457/af8680f9b4-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dery_Silk_Mill_Lehigh_Co_PA.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:Dery_Silk_Mill_Lehigh_Co_PA.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71994917","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biery%27s_Port_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4904645"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/lehigh-county/bierys-port-historic-district-84003457/"}