Present Facility

The property was sub-divided in the early 1970s, resulting in the purchase of the barn and 19 acres of land by the Board of Supervisors of Hereford Township in 1973. The second floor has been refurbished for use as the township office and meeting facility, and it continues to serve the township in that capacity. The Hereford Township Board of Supervisors provided the former cold storage area on the lower level area of the barn to the Hereford Township Heritage Society for its use after this organization was formed and incorporated in 2003. The facility is being developed to provide displays of historical artifacts from Hereford Township. Efforts are ongoing to provide information in the future regarding the history of Hereford Township as it relates to the many families that lived in Hereford Township during the 1735 to 1950’s and later time period.

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Past Facility

The Hereford Township Municipal Building is situated on land that was identified as the farm of George Mull on the map of Hereford Township in the 1876 Berks County Atlas. A succession of ownership during the next 90 years saw the farm ownership transferred from George Mull to the John B. Rauch family and his descendants, with ownership later passing to Robert Haines. He established a large orchard and fruit storage and packing facility. The barn was utilized for equipment storage and a significant section of the ground level floor and the area above it was used as a cold storage for the fruit picked from the orchards in the adjacent fields along Siesholtzville Road. The design of the cover of “Early Times in Hereford Township” incorporated the use of the original barn decoration that was copied from an old photograph of the Mull-Rauch barn that is now the headquarters for the Hereford Township Heritage Society, Inc..