Topics Technology & Engineering

Black-and-white image of an ornate white building on a riverbank with trees behind it

A new book, more than 40 years in the making, about an iconic Philadelphia building

Spring Garden Northern Liberties, or Schuylkill Works (1844)

Fairmount Water Powered Works Expansion (1859 to 1861)

Fairmount Water Turbine Wheels (1851)

Fairmount Water Powered Water Works (1822)

Fairmount Steam Works (1815)

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

New Mill House at Fairmount (2008.001.0046)

New Mill House at Fairmount

Tinted image of a single-arch bridge over a river with landscape in the distance

Lancaster/Schuylkill Bridge (Upper Ferry Bridge)

View of Fairmount Water Works, ca. 1827