The history of Angelica Creek Park is one of both hurt and healing.
In 1885, the Angelica Water Company erected a dam, impeding Angelica Creek’s natural flow and creating a 12-acre lake impoundment for producing ice. The City of Reading purchased the land containing Angelica Lake and its dam in 1915 to create a city park which became a popular hub for visitors to fish, swim, boat, and even ice skate.
Dams have long served an important industrial purpose for society. But it’s easy for such structures to overstay their welcome. Dams don’t just block water, they interfere with the movement of wildlife, impair water quality, and pose public safety risks as they age and decay. As it was with the Angelica Dam and its century-long tenure. In 2001, Tropical Storm Allison tore through Berks County and the dam breached, revealing a sorely degraded floodplain buried under a century’s worth of sediment.
The Angelica Dam was never rebuilt. Instead, the City of Reading chose to reinvest in the park’s recreational infrastructure and restore the Angelica Creek’s mud-choked floodplain, utilizing its wetland nexus as a natural stormwater mitigation measure.
Restoration began in 2006. Angelica’s banks were regraded and stabilized while tons of century-old legacy sediment were removed. From young trees a streamside forest grew and from native seeds pollinator-friendly meadows sprouted. Two wetlands – each 1-acre in size – a retention pond, and a rain garden have created a stormwater management nexus to filter runoff and recharge groundwater during storm events.
Berks Nature continues to steward and manage Angelica Creek Park for both ecological function and outdoor recreation. But this place is not just a park, it is our home.
In 2013, Berks Nature entered into a unique lease agreement with the City of Reading. In this partnership, we agreed to share management responsibility for the 100-acre park with the City and Alvernia University. With this lease in place, Berks Nature opened The Nature Place: a LEED Gold certified nature center for Reading and a headquarters for Berks Nature.
The Nature Place was created as an immersive campus of environmental learning and demonstration which includes the sustainable features of the building itself, the Berks Nature Preschool, and opportunities to learn and play in our Teaching Garden and Nature Play Zone.
Today, Angelica Creek Park is not just a popular respite for people seeking nature’s relief, it is a haven for a diversity of native wildlife and The Nature Place campus has become a living demonstration of coexistence, sustainable living, and the value of nature.
