Five years ago this month, the remnants of Tropical Storm Ida moved through Pennsylvania. It brought torrential rain and catastrophic flooding to the Perkiomen Valley, inundating Main Street in Schwenksville and many of its neighboring communities. I was home from work that day. Like most people in the immediate area, I lost power.

Blues legend John Mayall was scheduled to perform that evening at Sellersville Theater. The show was sold out, but the storm kept most people home, leaving only a skeleton audience for what would be his final performance there.

In Collegeville, the Perkiomen Bridge Hotel stood beside the rising creek. The old inn had already been deteriorating for years, but Ida would leave its mark. Floodwaters tore away much of the hotel’s later, nonhistoric additions, exposing the older stone sections beneath.

And there was a lot of history beneath them. A public inn had operated at this location since the early 1700s, serving travelers along the road between Philadelphia and Reading. The surviving building includes sections dating to the eighteenth century, along with additions made over the years that followed.

The stone bridge beside it was completed in 1799, replacing earlier wooden bridges and temporary pontoon crossings that had been repeatedly destroyed by floods. For generations, travelers crossed the Perkiomen here, making the hotel and bridge an important stopping place long before Collegeville became the community we know today.

The Perkiomen Bridge Hotel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. But being recognized doesn’t necessarily mean a place is safe. Ida did more than damage an old building. It exposed how difficult it can be to save a place when its future is uncertain—and how standing and being saved are not necessarily the same thing.

Maintained by the National Park Service, the National Register recognizes buildings, sites, structures, districts, and objects significant to American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture. But a listing is not permanent. When a property loses the qualities that made it significant, it can be removed from the National Register. Pennsylvania has seen that happen before.

In Reading, there was once a theater on Penn Street that could make a person forget, at least for a few hours, that they were in Reading.

When the Astor Theatre opened in October 1928, it was one of the city’s grandest places of entertainment. Designed by theatrical architect William H. Lee, it drew 3,000 people for an opening night filled with live entertainment. One local account described it as difficult to believe they were on Penn Street and not Broadway.

The theater was filled with Art Deco details. The lobby featured mirrors, gilded panels, art-glass sconces, and a massive crystal chandelier. In the auditorium, decorative sunbursts and intricate plasterwork rose toward the vaulted ceiling.

For decades, the Astor brought movies and live entertainment to downtown Reading. But by the 1970s, the theater was no longer drawing the audiences it once had. It closed as a movie theater in 1975, though it later hosted concerts. By then, most of the other theaters that had once lined Penn Street were already gone. The Astor was the last of them.

In 1978, the theater was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. But being on the Register did not guarantee that the building could never be demolished.

There were people who wanted to save it. A nonprofit group, Astor Inc., was formed to explore whether the theater could be rehabilitated and given a sustainable future. The Reading Redevelopment Authority, however, opposed restoration, arguing that rehabilitation was not commercially feasible. In 1980, the authority asked the state to remove the theater from the State Register of Historic Places so it could more easily be demolished for new development.

The Astor survived for another 18 years, but ultimately not another generation. In 1998, it was demolished to make way for the new arena that would become Santander Arena.

But the Astor didn’t disappear completely. Some of its architectural details were incorporated into the lobby of the new arena. And in a final twist, the Astor’s National Register listing wasn’t removed until 2000—two years after the theater itself was already gone.

Haupt’s Mill Covered Bridge disappeared much more suddenly. Built in 1872 over Cooks Creek in Bucks County’s Springfield Township, the 107-foot wooden bridge was constructed in the town truss style. Also known as Witte’s Bridge, it stood near Houpt’s Mill and served travelers through the nearby community of Springtown. For more than a century, it was an ordinary part of the landscape.

By the time Haupt’s Mill Covered Bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, it was one of only a handful of covered bridges remaining in Bucks County. Five years later, it was gone.

In the early morning hours of January 14, 1985, an arsonist set the bridge on fire. Two residents, Robert Parker and Steven Wessel, noticed the flames around 2:50 a.m. Fire companies arrived within minutes, but there was nothing they could do. The bridge burned to the ground, leaving only its charred remains. The county investigated the fire, while an insurance organization offered a reward for information leading to the arsonist’s arrest and conviction.

Then came the question of whether the bridge should be rebuilt. Some residents favored a replica, while others questioned whether another bridge was needed. In 1987, Bucks County commissioners said the county did not have the $400,000 needed to reconstruct it. So the bridge was not rebuilt, and its National Register listing was eventually removed as well.

Haupt’s Mill was a different kind of loss than the Astor. There was no redevelopment plan waiting for the site. No new arena. No debate over what should replace it. There was simply a fire—and an empty space where a bridge had stood for more than a century.

But Haupt’s Mill was not the first Bucks County covered bridge to face an uncertain future.

Built in 1874 over the northeast branch of the Perkiomen Creek, Mood’s Covered Bridge was constructed because residents needed a reliable way across a creek often made impassable by ice and high water. Local residents petitioned Bucks County for the bridge, describing it as “much wanted.” It was built near the farm of Samuel Mood, who had returned to Bucks County after seeking his fortune in the California Gold Rush.

The bridge made it into the twentieth century, but that did not mean an easy life. By 1919, inspectors had found a missing section of roof, badly worn siding, and a broken beam. Decades later, as the Perkasie area grew, the bridge repeatedly fell into disrepair. It underwent major rehabilitation in the 1960s and 1970s, was damaged by a backhoe and a falling tree, and was repaired again in the 1990s. At one point, state officials even planned to demolish it. Public opposition helped save it.

Then, in January 2004, a trash truck taller than the bridge’s clearance tore through the structure, breaking eight of its twelve roof supports. The bridge was closed. Five months later, six young men from the Perkasie area set it on fire. The men later pleaded guilty to arson and other charges.

For a moment, it appeared that Mood’s might be gone for good. PennDOT initially planned a simpler replacement rather than another covered bridge. But East Rockhill Township asked the agency to reconsider. Bucks County agreed to take ownership, and residents rallied behind the effort to rebuild.

Mood’s had been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1980. After the fire, its listing was removed in August 2004.

In February 2008, a new covered bridge reopened to traffic. It was a replica, not the original. But the new bridge incorporated period-style construction, and at least one piece of the old wooden truss was worked into the new structure.

The original bridge was gone. But unlike Haupt’s Mill, the crossing survived. That raises a different question: If a historic place is rebuilt after it is destroyed, what exactly are we saving?

The answer was somewhat different at Twining Ford. Also known as Schofield Ford Covered Bridge, the nineteenth-century bridge in what is now Tyler State Park was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. It was destroyed by arson on October 7, 1991, and its National Register listing was removed in 1994.

But this time, the community did not let the story end there.

Concerned citizens organized a fundraising effort to rebuild it, raising $350,000 for the project. When construction began, they had something precious to work with: the bridge’s original plans had survived. The new structure was built on the original stone abutments and center pier, using those plans to create a replica of what had been destroyed. Woodhouse Post and Beam of Mansfield handled the construction, with hundreds of volunteers taking part.

The rebuilt bridge was dedicated in September 1997. Today, it carries no cars. It is part of the trail system in Tyler State Park, open to people on foot and horseback.

Mortonville Bridge raises a different question. The stone bridge over the West Branch Brandywine Creek in Chester County dates to 1826. It replaced an earlier wooden crossing built here in 1789. Bridges may have stood at the site even earlier, dating to the construction of Strasburg Road in the 1770s.

By the 2000s, however, the old bridge had become a problem. It was narrow—barely wide enough for two cars—and PennDOT considered it structurally deficient and functionally obsolete. The agency proposed building a new, 30-foot-wide bridge about 200 feet downstream and leaving the historic bridge behind.

Local preservationists fought back. They weren’t just trying to save an old bridge. They argued that replacing it would damage the historic character of Mortonville itself, a small mill village along the Brandywine. Eventually, PennDOT abandoned the replacement plan and agreed to rehabilitate the 1826 bridge.

The project took ten months in 2009. The bridge was widened by six feet. Its arches were repaired, and as much of the original stone as possible was retained. But the rehabilitation substantially altered the structure.

The bridge had been added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. In July 2010, it was removed from the Register.

Unlike Haupt’s Mill, the bridge still stands. Unlike Mood’s and Twining Ford, it wasn’t destroyed and then rebuilt as a replica. It was rehabilitated and altered—and that may be the most complicated question of all.

When does preserving a historic place change it so much that it is no longer considered the same historic place?

The land at the northeast corner of Almshouse Road and Route 611 in Doylestown has been part of Bucks County’s story for centuries. The property was originally part of William Penn’s land grant and was deeded to John Gray in 1684. By the late 1700s, it belonged to the Fretz family.

Christian Fretz built the core of what would become Fretz Farm and operated the Fretz Valley Inn, a hotel and tavern that welcomed travelers from 1812 to 1846.

In 1871, Christian’s grandson, Philip Fretz, added a striking seven-gabled Italianate-Victorian farmhouse, along with a cavernous barn built on the site of the old inn. The estate remained in the Fretz family until 1913, when the heirs sold it to the Tabor Home for Needy and Destitute Children. The farmhouse became the children’s home’s main building, while the farm became part of the institution, with fields, gardens, a tenant farm, and recreational facilities spread across the property.

The property changed hands and purposes again in the twentieth century. By the 1970s, it was owned by Carl Buehler, who renamed it Blueberry Hill for the blueberry bushes growing there. In 1985, the house became the “House on Blueberry Hill,” part of a Doylestown Hospital Designer House project. It later operated as the Inn on Blueberry Hill, a restaurant and bed-and-breakfast, before becoming the Shoppes at Blueberry Hill.

Fretz Farm was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, recognizing the farmhouse, barn, carriage house, and other structures as part of a historic farm complex. But the landscape around them was changing. Commercial development gradually transformed the site. The old stone barn was adapted for new uses, with historic stone walls incorporated into a modern storefront. Other portions became home to businesses and services. By 2012, so much of the site had been altered that it could no longer remain on the National Register. Fretz Farm was removed from the Register that August.

Sometimes, people know a building is worth saving. They simply can’t agree on what saving it should mean. At West Chester State College, that question centered on Old Main.

Construction began in 1870, and the building was ready when the school opened in September 1871. Designed by architect Addison Hutton and built from locally quarried Chester County serpentine stone, Old Main quickly became the heart of the campus.

It was more than an impressive structure. It was where generations of students lived and learned. Classrooms, administrative offices, and student dormitories filled the building, making Old Main part of everyday life at the school.

But the school itself was changing. What began as a two-year normal school gradually became a four-year State Teachers College, officially joining Pennsylvania’s system in 1927. By 1960, the institution had become West Chester State College, and its curriculum was expanding beyond teacher training into the liberal arts.

Old Main was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 2, 1971, but it was in need of extensive upgrades. The cost of modernizing it was considered prohibitive. Despite strong objections from the college and members of the local community, the Pennsylvania Department of General Services demolished it later that year.

But people weren’t willing to let it disappear completely. As part of the college’s centennial celebration that year, a committee was formed to find a way to preserve a piece of Old Main. Its stone entranceway arch and marble steps were salvaged from the demolished building. In 1997, those original pieces were reconstructed into a memorial near High Street and Rosedale Avenue, creating a gateway to the university’s academic quad.

Old Main’s National Register listing was removed in 1974, three years after the building itself was demolished.

Back in Montgomery County, two very different historic houses had something in common: both had been recognized as important enough to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Neither survived.

When Episcopal Academy moved from Philadelphia to Merion in 1921, it took over the former Yorklynne estate of John Odgers Gilmore. The Upper House itself had a history dating to long before the school arrived.

The house was significant for its architecture and connection to education. Its style was identified as French Renaissance, and its architect was William L. Price, an important figure in Philadelphia’s Arts and Crafts movement.

On February 2, 1973, the Upper House was added to the National Register of Historic Places. But even that recognition could not save it. There was an intense battle to preserve the house, but the effort failed. The building was demolished later that year to make way for a parking lot. By January 1, 1974, its National Register listing had been removed.

Episcopal Academy itself remained in Merion for another three decades before eventually moving to Newtown Square in 2008.

And then there was the Valentine Nungesser House in Woxall. There is far less information about this one, which almost makes it more intriguing. The house stood along Skippack Road and was recognized for its architectural significance, with a period of significance stretching from the eighteenth century into the early nineteenth century. Its architect or builder was unknown.

It was added to the National Register on August 17, 1973—and by January 1, 1974, it was gone.

But there may be one more piece of the story.

The Nungesser name was part of this part of Montgomery County long before the house appeared in a federal register. A Valentine Nungesser owned 141 acres in Upper Salford Township in 1771, placing the family in the area during the same eighteenth-century period for which the house was considered historically significant.

The family appears in several other records from the area. Valentine Nungesser, 1718–1767, is buried at Old Goshenhoppen Union Cemetery in Upper Salford Township. Another Valentine Nungesser, 1741–1827, is buried at St. James-Perkiomen Episcopal Cemetery in Evansburg. Passenger records also show a Valentin Nungesser arriving in Philadelphia aboard the Samuel in 1732, listed as under 16.

We can’t yet say which, if any, of these men was connected to the house. But that uncertainty is part of what makes the Nungesser story so compelling.

That brings us back to Collegeville.

The Perkiomen Bridge Hotel is not a National Historic Landmark. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a different level of federal recognition. But the designation is almost beside the point. The question here is much simpler: What happens when a place with centuries of history is still standing, but no one knows what comes next?

The borough’s 2021 assessment found that the oldest and most historically significant portions of the hotel remained capable of preservation, even as later additions had suffered extensive deterioration. After Ida, the borough reported that the flood had demolished the twentieth-century additions while the original stone portions remained standing.

And maybe that is the hardest part of preservation. Sometimes the thing worth saving is still there. You can see it. You can touch it. But that doesn’t mean it will survive.

We have seen what happens when it doesn’t. The Astor Theatre became an arena. Haupt’s Mill became an empty space beside a creek. Mood’s and Twining Ford were rebuilt because people refused to let the story end. Mortonville was altered until it was no longer considered the same historic place. Fretz Farm was gradually transformed by commercial development. Old Main disappeared, leaving only its entrance. The Upper House and the Nungesser House vanished so completely that today, much of their stories have to be pieced together from old records.

That is how history disappears.

Not always with a wrecking ball. Not always with fire. Sometimes it happens slowly, as buildings change, memories fade, and the people who remember a place are no longer here to tell us what stood there.

The National Register can tell us that a place mattered. It can give us a name, a date, a photograph, a record of what once stood there. But it cannot make anyone care.

That part is up to us.