Topics Streams & Rivers

Two views on the water supply, 1939

Photo of four men standing on the banks of the Schuylkill River on the last day of the Schuylkill Interceptor, December 20, 1956

Last gasp of the Schuylkill Interceptor, December 20, 1956

Dobson FLP

You would not have wanted to drink it: Philadelphia’s water supply in 1884

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

Frankford Creek Watershed: A historical overview of the Philadelphia section

Color image of a grassy field with trees and buildings surrounding it and white lines drawn on the grass mimicking the path of a creek.

Drawing Dock Creek

Newspaper Clipping Scrapbooks of Frederick Graff Jr., Chief Engineer of the Philadelphia Water Department. Part 2: 1858-1871

Kensington Water Supply in 1883

Petition of manufacturers along the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia for a new upstream water supply, 1868

The Water Supply Problem of Philadelphia, 1899

William Penn balks at drinking the "mixed drink" offered him: Schuylkill water, mixed with pollution from the upstream sources named. Editorial cartoon by Fred Morgan, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 6, 1899. One of a series of cartoons drawn by Morgan protesting the state of the city's drinking water and trying to encourage the passage of legislation authorizing the construction of a water filtration system.

Half a Century of Clean Water

Black-and-white image of a brick sewer outlet that drains into a creek with trees and a hill behind it

Thomas Run sewer outlet at Cobbs Creek