The area that today is known as “North Park” is where the old Kutztown pool use to be. The history of the area as far as the Kutztown community is concerned, goes back to 1889.

The Allentown & Reading Traction Company was once known as the “Dorney Park Line”. It was made up of two different traction companies. They were the Allentown Kutztown Traction company and the Kutztown Fleetwood traction company. The two lines were merged into the Allentown Reading traction company on July 10, 1902.

The 10 October 1918 issue of The Patriot reported that the influenza epidemic had not hit the Kutztown area, but the “town is under strict orders to obey the regulations set down by the State Department of Health.” The regulations were listed in the PA Acting Commissioner of Health Dr. B. Franklin Royer’s proclamation.

​The gentleman’s sport of competitive horse racing in eastern Berks County appears to date to the early 19th century, when, according to the 1915 Centennial History of Kutztown, the George Schaeffer farm, just east of the Agway store (formerly the Crystal Bowl) in Maxatawny Twp., proximate to lands owned by the Hottenstein family, hosted a number of such events from the late 1820s through the early 1830s when it was the property of several sons of Philip Schaeffer, who, appropriately enough, is credited with manufacturing the first horse-powered threshing machine in Berks County.

The first recorded mention of this home occurs in John S. Ermentrout’s 1876 Historical Sketch of Kutztown & Maxatawny, Berks County, Penn’a., in which the author describes it as “a one-story log building . . . [that] stood at no great distance from the Saucony creek, where now stands the elegant mansion of Daniel Sharadin.”

In 2019, after several years of detective work and assisted by Josiah Wagner and Bill Ward, Allentown firefighter Jeremy Bellois contacted the Kutztown Area Historical Society. He had located, in the collection of Sutton “Sut” Marshall of Conway, New Hampshire, the “lost” 1840 Joel Bates “America” hand pumper that had been purchased by Kutztown’s Borough Council in the mid-19th century. The pumper was previously housed in the borough or surrounding vicinity for more than 125 years. Since then, the society, in conjunction with Kutztown Fire Company No. 1, has researched the pumper’s history and organized a fund-raising campaign to return the pumper to eastern Pennsylvania. Through many generous donations of the community members, the pumper has been successfully purchased by the Kutztown Historical Society and moved back to Kutztown in May 2022.

The younger generation in Kutztown may not think it possible, but it is nevertheless true that Kutztown had its organized baseball team 40 years ago, the same as it has to-day. And a “cracker-jack” of a team it was, don’t you fret. This was way back in the 1870’s. There was at that distant day quite some sporting blood in our good old town. Baseball was then in its infancy. Not every country cross-roads had its baseball team as is the case to-day, and clubs necessarily were few and far between.