March 12, 1898: Progress Halted on Trolley Line from Boyertown to Reading Amid Editor's Harsh Objection

By Margaret Leidy Harner from her book One Day at a Time: A Social History of Boyertown, PA.

March 12, 1898: Editor Spatz is livid. He wrote, “on account of the strenuous opposition to the trolley road by supervisors of Douglass Township and other prejudiced citizens owning property along the line in said Township, the probabilities are that the route will be abandoned from Boyertown (to Reading) by way of Yellow House and a new route will be selected (through Pleasantville). The new route would be two miles longer, the surveying and all of the signing of right must begin again…. Through the narrow mind, nearsighted, pigheaded stubbornness of a few individuals, the citizens along the Yellow House route will lose the opportunity of cheap, easy travel to the county seat because a few individuals have taken it into their heads to block the road from being built through Douglass Township.”

This proposed trolley finally came to Boyertown in 1902 through Pleasantville, but only after much wrangling and court action, going all the way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

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