Mertztown is a

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, suc ...

in Longswamp Township, Berks County,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, United States. It is located near the borough of Topton. As of the 2010 census, the population was 664 residents.https://www.census.gov/# Mertztown is located in Berks County at latitude 40.506 and longitude -75.665 (Mertztown Panoramio Photos.) and its elevation is 466 feet. It appears on the Topton U.S. Geological Survey Map and is in the

Eastern time zone The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a smal ...

( UTC-5). The former

Reading Railroad The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and commercial rail transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states that operated from 1924 until its 1976 acquisition by Conrail. Commonly call ...

that runs through the center of Mertztown, is used by

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31, ...

as the

Reading Line The Reading Line is a main freight line in Pennsylvania owned and operated by Norfolk Southern Railway. It stretches from the Harrisburg Line at Wyomissing Junction in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania to a junction with the Lehigh Line in Bethlehem, Pen ...

, and is a heavily used railroad branch. A branch of the

Catasauqua and Fogelsville Railroad The Catasauqua and Fogelsville Railroad was built in the 1850s to transport iron ore from local mines in Lehigh and later Berks County to furnaces along the Lehigh River in eastern Pennsylvania. Originally owned by two iron companies, the railro ...

once passed through the Farmington and Klines Corner section of Mertztown, but the tracks were torn up years ago. Mertztown was founded in 1823 by Robert Mertz. The population density is .01% Black, .01% Hispanic or other, and 99.8% white. Atlas Minerals, a major mineral company, is located in Mertztown, moved to the town in 1917, and has been there ever since. The town is down to one grocery store and two hardware stores. Brandywine Heights Area High School is also located in Mertztown, as is Gateway Christian School. The area code is 610. The Toad Creek runs east through the village from Topton into the Little Lehigh Creek. Social places in the area would include Mertztown Rod and Gun Club, Rockland Rod And Gun Club, The Inn At Maple Grove, and the Dryville Hotel.

Demographics

Notable places

* Dorney Road Landfill, which was added to the Superfund National Priorities List by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1984 and removed from that same list in 2018

References

External sources

* http://pennsylvania.hometownlocator.com/pa/berks/mertztown.cfm http://pennsylvania.hometownlocator.com/pa/berks/mertztown.cfm {{authority control Census-designated places in Berks County, Pennsylvania Census-designated places in Pennsylvania