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.

Cobbs Creek: A Brief Historical Overview by Adam Levine

Mill Creek Sewer under construction. Several men standing beside a giant partially constructed sewer pipe.

Mill Creek Sewer under construction, 1883

“Fairmount Waterworks. From the forebay.” (From nature & on stone G. Lehman; Published by C.G. Childs & G. Lehman, 1833. Free Library of Philadelphia, Print & Picture Collection)

Fairmount Water Works from the forebay, 1833

State House Garden, Philadelphia, 1800

The City and Port of Philadelphia on the River Delaware from Kensington, 1800

Race Bridge, Fair Mount Water Works, 1834 (Graff05.63)

Race Bridge, Fairmount Water Works, 1834

View of Fairmount Water Works, ca. 1827

Penn's Treaty with the Lenape

Penn’s Treaty with the Indians (Watson’s Annals)

Dock Creek Watson's Annals

Drawbridge and Dock Creek, Watson’s Annals