North of the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-76), Chester County has a rural character until it nears Phoenixville on the Schuylkill River. Phoenixville occupies an important role in the nation's architectural history for the presence of the Phoenix Iron Company ( CH36) that supplied materials for such noteworthy modern structures as the trusses and beams of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts ( PH52) and the Phoenix columns that supported many of the industrial structures of the region. Like so many of the one-industry towns of Pennsylvania, Phoenixville is now struggling to reinvent itself, but there are worthwhile structures.
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