This past Sunday our very own Lansdale Train Station was inducted into the National Register of Historic Places; an honor reserved for under 100,000 buildings and locations across our entire country. This was a capstone moment to a monumental week for Lansdale. As we turned 150 years young, our train station took a place of distinction in both our local and national history.
Originally built in 1902 by the Reading Railroad Company for around $75,000, our train station serviced around 50 or so trains per day and was a gem of the Reading line. According to our own Lansdale Reporter in 1902, it sported “every amenity of the era – a men’s smoking room, a ladies parlor room, modern lighting, and rest rooms. The waiting room with its 19-foot ceiling was finished in quartered oak.”
At that time, few would have anticipated the transformative impact of that $75,000 investment. For around $2.4 million in today’s currency, Lansdale would be forever changed. We became, truly, a destination. Lansdale would attract people from all over the region looking to have easy access to Center City while not having to live in the city itself. It gave birth to a robust and bustling borough that would come to embody the idea of “Life in Motion.”
Today, people still come from all over to live in Lansdale. We are a community constantly in flux. Even through two pandemics (1918 and 2020), Lansdale continued to reinvent itself and find new ways to keep our community moving forward.
The train station has come to embody our community in so many ways. For me, it embodies the understanding of investment in the community and being unafraid to dare boldly. Spending the equivalent of $2.4 million on a largely new infrastructure project was a huge risk in 1902. Similarly, Lansdale Electric represents this same innovative mindset. That what we invest in today, if done properly, can fundamentally enhance our community for generations to come.
As mayor, I hope Lansdale continues to embrace this mindset. It is a defining characteristic of who we are and one that has made us an incredible place to call home for 150 years. Lansdale should continue to look forward and invest in technology and infrastructure precisely because it represents the possibility of keeping our community moving forward.
Projects like municipal 5G internet, local power generation, EV charging stations, and many others share that same innovative spark that would attract residents and business to call Lansdale home — just as the train station did so many years ago. If we can dedicate ourselves to these endeavors and dare to build a community focused on the next 150 years, then maybe our great, great, grandchildren will be inspired by our investments in the community and continue that uniquely Lansdale legacy of peering into the future and redefining in their own age what it means to live life in motion.
(Mayoral Musings is a weekly op-ed column submitted to North Penn Now, courtesy of Lansdale Borough Mayor Garry Herbert. The views expressed are his own.)
See also:
Mayoral Musings: Lansdale Officially Turns 150 Wednesday, Community Picnic to be Held in Evening
Mayoral Musings: Lansdale’s 150th Anniversary Parade
Mayoral Musings: Lansdale Solar Power Program Update
Mayoral Musings: National Night Out Event Scheduled for Tuesday
Mayoral Musings: Let’s Talk About Crime in Lansdale
