Biery's Port Historic District

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.