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

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

Plans and maps of the Pennypack Creek Watershed in Philadelphia

Wingohocking Sewer across Penn St.

Wingohocking Sewer across Penn St.

History of Belfield (1934)

Black-and-white diagram showing streets and the Little Tacony Creek

Frankford Creek Watershed: A historical overview of the Philadelphia section

Report on channelization of Frankford Creek for flood control (1947)

Frankford Creek Watershed Historical Timeline

Frankford Creek Watershed in the context of the development of Philadelphia’s sewers and sewage treatment system

Down Under III: A walk in the Dobson’s Run Storm Relief Sewer, June 15, 2010