Fleetwood Borough

Berks County, Pennsylvania

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Borough municipal offices are located at 110 West Arch Street, Suite 104, Fleetwood, PA 19522.
Phone: 610‑944‑8220.

Neighborhoods

Fleetwood was settled around 1868 and incorporated October 4, 1873 from Richmond Township.

Beginnings [1]

The first settlement of what would be Fleetwood occurred in 1775. The town grew slowly as a milling and agricultural community through the mid-19th century. A wood-framed store was constructed on what would be the bank site in the 1830s. The borough of Fleetwood was incorporated in 1873, with a population of 500. Assisting Fleetwood's growth was a Reading Railroad branch connecting Allentown with Reading via Fleetwood. In 1898 brothers Frank and Charles Kutz built a three story, five by ten bay brick building at the southeast corner of Main and Franklin Streets. The new building housed a general store on the first floor and featured a wide porch that curved around the Main-Franklin intersection. The Kutz brothers located their hosiery factory on the upper two floors of the building; at its peak, the factory produced 500 dozen pairs of hosiery a day.*

*Blatt, Alfred W., and Esser, Charles H., editors, Fifty Years of Fleetwood History. (Kutztown Publishing Company, 1923). Kutz brothers leased the store to David Brown and Charles Kieffer, who operated it as Brown & Kieffer. After Mr. Brown's death, Kieffer partnered with Clayton Mertz and the store operated as Kieffer & Mertz until 1919.

  1. Uhl, Charles, First National Bank in Fleetwood, Berks County PA, nomination document, 2004, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.

Nearby Towns: Alsace Twp • Kutztown Boro • Lower Alsace Twp • Lyons Boro • Maidencreek Twp • Maxatawny Twp • Oley Twp • Pike Twp • Richmond Twp • Rockland Twp • Ruscombmanor Twp •


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