Subjects Landscape Changes

Filling valleys and other lowlands, cutting down high ground, piping streams into sewers, filling marshland, dredging and damming streams and rivers, and any other activities or infrastructure designed to alter the original topography of the city to more readily accommodate real estate development.

Still on the Map: Poquessing Creek and its Tributaries

Houses on an abutment, from The Waffle

The Waffle: Water History Video 6

Map Lovers’ Monday: Philadelphia Topography

Map Lovers’ Monday: Topography of Philadelphia from 1863

Repurposing Old Infrastructure: Water History Video 5

Sandy Run Watershed and the Holmesburg Water Works

Photograph of Roberts Mill on Wingohocking Creek in Germantown, built in the late 17th century. (Photograph by J. C. Browne, 1871. Castner Collection/Free Library of Philadelphia)

Roberts Mill, Wingohocking Creek, 1871

Colored ink drawing showing drainage areas and sewer inlets in Philaelphia in the early 19th century

Drainage area plan, early 19th century

Schuylkill River at Rockland Landing (Picturesque America)

Plans and maps of the Pennypack Creek Watershed in Philadelphia

Wingohocking Sewer across Penn St.

Wingohocking Sewer across Penn St.

Buried Treasures No. 1: The Franklin Sugar Refinery