28-04-2025
Reading Public Museum to dedicate 100th anniversary time capsule
The Reading Public Museum will dedicate a time capsule, marking the 100th anniversary of the museum's building and grounds.
The free event May 1 at the museum, 500 Museum Road, is intended to celebrate the institution's century-long commitment to education and its lasting impact.
'The museum is delighted to celebrate 100 years in its iconic building in the 18th Ward of Reading,' said Geoffrey K. Fleming, executive director and CEO. 'The continuing existence of our building and grounds exemplify the timeless need for communities to have unyielding places to gather, learn and be inspired.'
The event will take place exactly 100 years after Reading School District and museum staff, school board members and others from the community gathered May 1, 1925, to place the building's cornerstone.
The moment was memorialized in a black and white photograph on display in the museum's current exhibition, 100 Years: A Cornerstone of Our Community, museum officials said in a release.
A time capsule placed inside the cornerstone held an American flag, a Holy Bible, a set of 1925 coins ranging from 1cent to $1, daily newspapers from April 30 and May 1, 1925, and the names of Reading School Board members, museum architect Alexander F. Smith, and contractor Irvin Impink, among other items.
Reading Public Museum founder Dr. Levi W. Mengel breaks ground Feb. 9, 1925, for the museum building in the 18th Ward. (Courtesy of the Berks History Center)
The cornerstone laying May 1, 1925, marked the fulfillment of founder Dr. Levi Mengel's vision of building an educational museum of world treasures, the release said.
Mengel, a Reading science teacher, started the museum's collection as a teaching tool. In 1907, the third floor of the school district's old administration building at Eighth and Washington streets, was converted to house the growing collection.
Land for a new museum in the 18th Ward was donated to the school district by Wyomissing industrialists Ferdinand Thun, Henry Janssen and Gustav Oberlaender, and the completed museum opened its doors to the public in 1929.
Reading School Board members and Reading Public Museum staff inspect the future site of the museum along the Wyomissing Creek before groundbreaking in February 1925. (Courtesy of the Berks History Center)
The items in the new time capsule were inspired by the originals and also include materials that mark the achievements and growth of the museum over the past century.
These were collected by a committee of museum staff, school district administrators and others who will recreate the 1925 photograph as the new time capsule is dedicated.
The event will also include the dedication of an Artemis 1 Moon Tree, planted last year in the museum's arboretum.
The sycamore sapling was grown by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Services from a seed that spent four weeks in space aboard the Orion spacecraft as a part of the Artemis 1 mission.
The sapling joined 25 acres of plantings, some of which have stood for as long as the museum building.
The Moon Tree represents the museum's continued commitment to inspiring curiosity and fostering learning about science, the outdoors, space exploration and the interconnectedness of Earth and the universe, officials said.
'We hope that the community will join us in celebrating as we enter the next 100 years of serving Reading and beyond,' Flemming said.
Refreshments will be available for purchase.
The Reading Public Museum is supported in part by grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
If you go
What: Reading Public Museum time capsule dedication
Where: Reading Public Museum, 500 Museum Road
When: May 1, 3 p.m.
More information:
