Topics Streams & Rivers

Water supply survey: Sanitary inspection of tributaries north of Philadelphia, 1884

Water History: Rebirth of the Rivers

Map Lover’s Monday: Looking for Cleaner Water

Sandy Run Watershed and the Holmesburg Water Works

Annual reports and other documents relating to Philadelphia’s water supply system, 1796-1941

Map Lover’s Monday: Fairmount Park, 1869

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

Fairmount Park topographical map, showing East Park Reservoir, 1872

Fairmount Water Works (Picturesque America)

Black-and-white etching of the Wire Bridge at Fairmount, 1873

Wire Bridge at Fairmount, with canal lock and esplanade, 1873

Wire Bridge at Fairmount

Schuylkill Navigation lock at Fairmount, 1873

Dobson FLP

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