Subjects Water Supply

Pipes, distribution mains, transmission mains, filtration plants, pumping stations, and all other appurtenances, either above or underground, that relate to providing drinking water to homes and businesses. In tandem with sewer systems, properly-designed water supply systems are what make densely-populated urban areas possible.

Centre Square Water Works, Drawings of Intake Basin

Centre Square Water Works, Frederick Graff, Sr. Plans, 1799

Benjamin Henry Latrobe, portrait by Filippo Costaggini, 1880

Centre Square Water Works, Latrobe Plans, 1799

men standing around a trench with pipes seen crossing through it. there is a steam engine on wheels behind them to the left, and a building in the background on the right with a sign they says Hotel Abbey, T G Schmidt & Sons, Pilsner & Puritan Beer.

Pipeline being laid in Wissahickon Avenue

Frederick Graff’s drawing of the 1815 steam engine, adapted from a design by Englishmen Matthew Boulton and James Watt, shows the engine from the north, with Faire Mount and the reservoirs to the left of the drawing and the river to the right. The 1815 engine sat on the south side of the Engine House and was thus called the South Engine. As Graff indicated in his drawing, the Engine House was essentially open from river level to the roof in order to accommodate the massive beam and fly wheel of the two engines. While Graff showed the crank attached to the axle of the fly wheel, he left the crank shaft and the pump out of the drawing. The North Engine, designed and built in 1816 by Philadelphian Oliver Evans, advanced steam engines’ operating pressures from 2 pounds per square inch (psi) to 200 psi, a significant technological achievement.

Steam engine drawing, Frederick Graff Sr., 1815