Old Pottstown Historic District (Additional Documentation)

Pottstown's Old Pottstown Historic District is a town centre of Victorian commercial, residential and church buildings, laid out by iron master John Potts in 1761 on a Philadelphia-style grid between the Manatawny Creek and the Schuylkill River. Its architecture reflects the growth that followed the arrival of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad in 1839 and the population increase from 721 in 1840 to 13,285 in 1890. High Street, King Street and Hanover Street hold the most elaborate houses, and the district includes Federal dwellings from the 1830s, Second Empire and Queen Anne homes, and the 1880 Philadelphia Steam Fire Engine Company firehouse. Its 1796 Old Brick Church is the district's only Georgian building. The district is significant for its concentration of late 19th-century industrial-era buildings and for the way they document the town's iron, silk and railroad industries.