Beechwood, Brookline and Penfield
A Tour of the Historic Residential Neighborhoods Along the Philadelphia & Western Railroad
In the fall of 2019, the Lower Merion Conservancy partnered with the Young Friends of the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia to offer a cycling tour through historic Beechwood, Brookline, and Penfield, early-twentieth-century neighborhoods in Haverford and Lower Merion Townships that tied their fortunes to the Philadelphia & Western Railroad.
This tour is adapted from that event. Refer to the attached map and visual aids for a self-guided cycling or walking tour of the area using your phone. Alternatively, experience the tour virtually with the same set of materials!
Your tour, which covers approximately four miles of smooth roads, follows the route on the map below. The map contains numbered stops. When you click on a number, a historic photo of the site you are visiting will appear.
From a phone or other portable device, press the "expand" icon to zoom in and out on the map. The duration of the tour will depend on your riding/walking speed and the amount of time you spend at each site.
Farmland
Before there was a Beechwood, a Brookline, or a Penfield, there were fields and mills. The shaded areas on the 1900 atlas, below, show farm and milling properties that were subdivided for Beechwood (shaded in green), Brookline (shaded in purple), and Penfield (shaded in blue).
E.V. Smith, Atlas of the Properties of the Main Line Pennsylvania Railroad, 1900.
The P&W
In about 1904, the Philadelphia & Western (P&W) began to acquire properties west of Philadelphia for the purpose of building a high-speed electric railroad from Sixty-Ninth Street in Upper Darby to Strafford. In Upper Darby Township and Haverford Township, these properties abutted Cobb's Creek (see map above). The P&W began operating in 1907.
This map shows the line of the P&W. The stars on the map mark the locations of the Beechwood and Penfield station stops.
Street Railway Journal, vol. 29, 1907.
A P&W car, the year the railroad opened. Source: Electric Railway Review, vol 17, 1907.
P&W Presents Real Estate Opportunities
Real estate ventures quickly seized opportunities to buy and develop land along the newly-opened railroad, a line touted as a convenient and cheap alternative to the neighboring Main Line Pennsylvania Railroad.
Image source: The Suburban (Wayne Times Edition), July 17, 1908.
Penfield
You tour begins in Penfield, the first suburban stop on the P&W.
Like many residential neighborhoods along Philadelphia's suburban rail lines, Penfield was developed on former farmland. The atlases in these slides, which date to 1908 (left) and 1913 (right), show Penfield before and immediately after its streets were surveyed.
E.V. Smith, Atlas of Properties On PA RR Overbrook to Malven Station, 1900; A. H. Mueller, Atlas of Properties Along the PA RR, 1908.
Penfield was heavily marketed in early-twentieth-century newspapers. This advertisement, published in the Philadelphia Inquirer on April 30, 1910, emphasized the proximity of Penfield to the city.
Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, April 30, 1910.
STOP #1
Stop #1 is the P&W station at Penfield. The panorama in this slide is from an early-twentieth-century marketing brochure for Penfield. The photo was taken from the in-bound side of the station. The sign to the left advertises the availability of houses in the neighborhood.
Prospective buyers are seen surveying the area. The P&W tracks are on the right. The house with the wrap-around porch at the top of the hill is the sales office for the development. (The office was meant to be temporary and was demolished.) The house in the center of the photo (with the two gables) still stands on Manoa Road. The street on the left near the "Penfield" sign is Grove Place.
"Rapid Progress is Made at Penfield."
This announcement, taken from a 1909 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer, reports on the development of Clifford B. Harmon & Company's Penfield neighborhood. At this time, Harmon & Company was one of the country's most prolific real estate developers.
Property improvements in Penfield included sidewalks, curbs, gutters, macadamized roads, and landscaping. The main selling point of the neighborhood, however, was its proximity, via the Philadelphia & Western Railroad, to the city.
Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, September 5, 1909.
STOP #2
Stop #2 is not a single site, but rather, the assemblage of houses on Lawson Avenue, a street on your route. The houses in these slides were constructed on Lawson Avenue and on nearby Penfield streets. Penfield had a dozen or so different home designs, each replicated (with variations) multiple times throughout the neighborhood.
Credit, left to right: Philadelphia Inquirer, 14 May, 1911; 3 May, 1914; 3 May, 1914.
The photographed houses on this slide (in color) are located on the 700 block of Lawson Avenue. They are similar in design to the house featured in the advertisement at right. This house style is repeated several times (with variations) throughout the Penfield neighborhood.
Image source: Evening Public Ledger, 12 June, 1915.
Eight years after Penfield opened, Harmon was still working hard to sell lots in the neighborhood. Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, May 10, 1916.
The next leg of your tour takes you into Brookline, a neighborhood that abuts Penfield at Edgewood Road. This 1908 atlas page shows Brookline shortly after its streets were laid out. Properties on Brookline Boulevard, the wide street at the middle of the map, were originally reserved for houses. By the 1920s, however, the eastern end of the street began to fill with business uses.
Image source: A.H. Mueller, Atlas of Properties on Main Line Pennsylvania Railroad, 1908.
Brookline was developed by A.E. Mueller & Co., a building firm with a prodigious presence in Delaware County. Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, June 29, 1907.
A. E. Mueller & Co. directed much of their marketing to speculative builders who bought and developed lots in bulk and then sold them at a profit. Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, September 19, 1907.
During the early 1900s, advertisements for Brookline appeared regularly in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Evening Public Ledger. The sales pitch for the neighborhood was always the same: access to the city by way of the P&W; quality, but affordable housing; modern amenities; and pleasant surroundings. The Brookline neighborhood was even to include a "new $35,000 school" (featured in above advertisement). The school, which was designed by the noted architect, David Knickerbocker Boyd, is currently threatened with demolition. Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, 16 May, 1913.
STOP #3
The next leg of your tour takes you to STOP #3. Here you will see two stone pillars - near the intersection of Edgewood Road and Kathmere Road - that served as the gateway to Brookline from the P&W station at Beechwood. This grainy photo of the pillars was published in a 1910 Philadelphia Inquirer promotional piece about Brookline.
Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, December 11, 1910.
STOP # 4
Stop #4 is the assemblage of houses on Strathmore Road, a residential street in Brookline. The following slides contain early-twentieth-century advertisements for newly-constructed houses on this street and other Brookline streets.
Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, May 2, 1909.
Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, May 30, 1909.
Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, May 15, 1918.
Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, October 31, 1920.
This house on Strathmore Avenue is typical of homes erected in the Brookline neighborhood. Photo (1907) courtesy of the Haverford Township Historical Society.
STOP # 5
STOP # 5 is the site of the former Brookline Square, a country club with an 18-hole golf course that opened in 1924. The clubhouse is at the center of the photograph. The Brookline Square Club was affiliated with the Freemasons. The name of the club as well as its ownership changed over the years. By the early 1940s, "Woodmere Park," a development of 250 houses, occupied the club's golf course. The clubhouse was demolished in the 1950s.
Haverford Township High School also occupies part of the former club property.
Photo credit: J. Victor Dallin Aerial Survey Collection, 1931. Hagley Museum and Library.
Announcement for the sale of the Brookline Square Club. Philadelphia Inquirer, May 26, 1926
The next leg of your tour brings you to Beechwood, a neighborhood that straddles Haverford Township and Lower Merion Township. Beechwood, which opened in 1907, was the first neighborhood developed along the P&W. The neighborhood, which had houses with open porches and deep yards, attracted families who wanted country living but easy access to the city. Like Penfield, Beechwood was developed by Wood, Harmon, & Co.
Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, May 26, 1907.
STOP #6
Stop #6 is the bridge across Cobbs Creek that marks the entrance to Beechwood. The advertisement below, published in a 1913 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer, shows the bridge a few years after it was completed. The original stone arch bridge was replaced with a concrete span in 1984.
Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, May 8, 1913
The stone arch bridge to Beechwood featured prominently in Harmon's marketing, including in the 1907 advertisement on the right. The bridge, like other elements of the neighborhood, including its steep slopes and canopy of shade trees, suggested the rustic and picturesque qualities of Beechwood.
Philadelphia Inquirer, June 16, 1907 (left); Philadelphia Inquirer, June 2, 1907 (right).
This 1907 plan indicates that the developers originally may have imagined Beechwood as a neighborhood of nearly 800 lots, with homes tightly clustered on hills, along Cobbs Creek and close to lakes created by existing mill dams. That level of density was never actualized. As the plan indicates, Beechwood straddled Haverford Township and Lower Merion Township. Plan credit: Lower Merion Township Building and Planning Department archives.
STOP # 7
Houses in the Beechwood Neighborhood
The following slides feature images of homes offered for sale in Beechwood. Several of the featured houses are on Beechwood Road and Beechwood Drive.
Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, April 2, 1911.
Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, April 28, 1912.
STOP #8
As you make your way through Beechwood, you will come to Lakeside Avenue, a street that terminates at Cobbs Creek. The street was named for a lake near the creek that was formed by an existing mill dam. The lake and dam appear on this 1908 atlas page. The dam broke in 1909 and the lake eventually retreated. The depressed area to the south of Lakeside marks the site of the former lake. The site may be reached by foot or cycle via the Power Mill Park Trail off Johnson Road (Park Place on the 1908 atlas).
Image source: A.H. Mueller, Atlas of Properties on Main Line Pennsylvania Railroad, 1908.
STOP #9
This stop is the site of the former Beechwood Amusement Park. The 19-acre park, which is depicted in this 1908 atlas, opened in 1907. The venture was promoted by the Philadelphia & Western Railroad and was intended to draw prospective home buyers to new neighborhoods along the railroad. The park closed in 1909. Its failure was alternately blamed on its small size, on bad weather, poor management, competition from area amusement parks, and the fact that the "disquieting nature of the place was undesirable to the neighborhood."
This photo of the park, taken from the outbound (west) side of the tracks, shows the main pavilion. The concrete platforms, right, carried a pedestrian bridge over the tracks.
Beechwood Park is also depicted on the 1908 map (above).
Quote: John W Eckfeldt, Cobb's Creek in the Days of the Old Powder Mill, 1917.
Image source: Electric Railway Review, vol 17, 1907.
Park Opens in 1907
Image source: Philadelphia Inquirer, May 19, 1907.
"A Real Amusement Park"
Image Source: Ardmore Chronicle, June 22, 1907.
This advertisement, announcing the disposal of materials from the defunct Beechwood Amusement Park, appeared in the April 2, 1910 issue of the Ardmore Chronicle.
This 1931 aerial shows the site of the former Beechwood Amusement Park. The concrete platforms that supported the pedestrian bridge over the P&W tracks are clearly visible. Other long-gone features of the area, including the Brookline Square Club golf course, quarry on Karakung Drive, and remains of the P&W's original power station are also visible.
Image source: V. Victor Dallin Aerial Survey Collection. Hagley Museum and Library.
The final leg of your journey takes you down Karakung Drive, formerly a private lane serving mill owners along Cobb's Creek. When Beechwood, Brookline, and Penfield were developed, this winding and wooded drive was populated with disused mill buildings.
Image: "Cobb's Creek at Beechwood," 1925. Courtesy City Parks Association of Philadelphia Records, Temple University.
