Topics Technology & Engineering

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

The 1815 Engine House (shown here in an 1819 print) housed two steam-powered pumps that drew water from the Schuylkill River and pumped it into the reservoirs above the building, on top of Faire Mount. The artist showed smoke pouring from the south chimney, indicating that the South Engine was operating. The bridge just downstream was the covered Upper Ferry Bridge, an incredible 340 feet long, also completed in 1815. Designed and constructed by Lewis Wernwag, a native of Germany who had studied engineering there, the bridge opened in 1813. Formally called the Upper Ferry Bridge, it was also known as the “Colossus of Philadelphia” because — like the mythical Colossus of Rhodes — the bridge was held up only by piers at its two ends, with no intermediate supports. Made entirely of wood, the bridge was destroyed by fire in 1838.

Fair Mount Water Works engine house, 1819

Color Diagram of Plan for the Collection, Purification and Disposal of the Sewage of the City of Philadelphia

DeLaval Beauty Shots 6

Electric Pump Installations at Lardner’s Point Pumping Station

View from the Inclined Plane, near Philadelphia, 1838

View from the Inclined Plane near Philadelphia, 1838

Sewage collection and disposal plan

Plan for the Collection, Purification and Disposal of the Sewage of the City of Philadelphia, 1912

New Mill House at Fairmount (2008.001.0046)

New Mill House at Fairmount

View of Fairmount Water Works, ca. 1827