Bally, PA

Bally is a Berks County borough with Pennsylvania Dutch roots and a name tied to its old Goshenhoppen settlement. Most Blessed Sacrament Church began as St. Paul’s Chapel in 1741, and its original 1743 structure still forms the rear of the church. The town was called Churchville when Father Augustine Bally became pastor in 1837; Bally took his name after his long tenure. The church museum and its Goshenhoppen records give the borough a deep Catholic and German-settler history, with the Old Bally Mennonite Church and nearby farmsteads adding other pieces to the local map.

That old religious landscape sits beside a highly specialized manufacturer. Bally Ribbon Mills, founded in 1923, makes over 2,000 woven patterns for medical, safety, industrial, aerospace, automotive, and military uses, with design, weaving, dyeing, and finishing handled at its Bally facility. Annie Funk, a Bally Mennonite missionary who died on the Titanic in 1912, remains part of the borough’s story. Borough Hall, the playground, pool, churches, and the mill all fit within a small place whose history is unusually visible in its working buildings.