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Borough of Phoenixville records
Notifications
Held at: Historical Society of the Phoenixville Area [Contact Us]204 Church St., Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, 19460
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Historical Society of the Phoenixville Area. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
"Phoenixville was settled in 1732 and incorporated as a borough in 1849. In its industrial heyday early in the twentieth century, it was an important manufacturing center. It was the site of great iron and steel mills such as the Phoenix Iron Works, boiler works, silk mill, underwear and hosiery factories, a match factory, and the famous (and now highly collectible) Etruscan majolica pottery. Like so many American towns and cities, Phoenixville owes its growth to its waterways.
"It is not only situated on the broad Schuylkill River, an historic thoroughfare to Native Americans and early settlers alike, but it is bisected by the fast-flowing French Creek, which was quickly harnessed for waterpower. Phoenixville has the largest registered historic district in Chester County. Many homes have been maintained and improved. Many stores have retained their Victorian facades."
Bibliography:
Quoted text from: Borough of Phoenixville. "Borough History." http://www.phoenixville.org/_about/About_History.html. Accessed October 3, 2013.
This collection consists of various records from the Borough of Phoenixville and several subsidiary departments. The largest groups of records are borough financial records and water department records. The financial records date from 1887 to 1967 and include cash books, cash fund ledgers, treasurer's books, and payroll records. The Phoenixville Water Department records, mostly water accounts, are from 1858 to 1930. There is also a sizeable quantity of Police Department records, consisting of police blotters (1898-1913), a police ledger (1931-1938), Police Commission minutes (circa 1941-1977), and a police pension fund ledger (1946-1949). The collection also includes Board of Health minutes, 1891-1927; planning commission records and reports; borough ordinances; and other scattered records. The Borough Council minutes, 1849-1960, are available on microfilm.
Gift of Borough of Phoenixville, 2013, and other sources.
Summary descriptive information on this collection was compiled in 2012-2014 as part of a project conducted by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to make better known and more accessible the largely hidden collections of small, primarily volunteer run repositories in the Philadelphia area. The Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR) was funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This is a preliminary finding aid. No physical processing, rehousing, reorganizing, or folder listing was accomplished during the HCI-PSAR project.
In some cases, more detailed inventories or finding aids may be available on-site at the repository where this collection is held; please contact Historical Society of the Phoenixville Area directly for more information.
Organization
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- Historical Society of the Phoenixville Area
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen and Faith Charlton through the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories
- Sponsor
- This preliminary finding aid was created as part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. The HCI-PSAR project was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- Access Restrictions
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Contact Historical Society of the Phoenixville Area for information about accessing this collection.