| Mill Creek | |
| River | |
|
The bowl in Clark Park was once a mill pond fed by Mill Creek
|
|
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| State | Pennsylvania |
| Source | |
| - location | Montgomery County, Pennsylvania |
| Mouth | |
| - location | Schuylkill River |
Mill Creek rises in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and runs for five miles (8 km) in a southeastern direction to the Schuylkill River where it debouches in the area of The Woodlands Cemetery. In a patent, the original name given by the Lenape was Nanganesey. It was called Quarn Creek by the Swedish settlers, and was listed by Manson's Great Mill Fall (Monson?), Mill creek and Little Mill creek.[1] The name of the creek comes from the fact it was used to power factories at Grays Ferry.
This creek has given its name to a neighborhood in Philadelphia that it flows through, although the creek itself is all but invisible, under the streets, as described below.
The creek bisects West Philadelphia, draining about 5,000 acres (20 km2).
Contents |
Originally, Mill Creek was fast-flowing (10 miles per hour) and fast-flooding, with the capacity to discharge 300,000 cubic feet per minute into the Schuylkill. It was known to flood, destroying crops and creating seas of mud.
As urban development began in West Philadelphia, the city covered several stream beds with cisterns and a layer of fill deep enough to level the land so that it could be platted into a regular street grid.
In 1866, a land survey determined that Mill Creek should be drained. The covering of Mill Creek began in 1869, encapsulating the watercourse in a 20-foot (6.1 m)-diameter drainpipe said to be the largest sewer pipe in the world at the time.[2] It was completed around 1895, allowed the grid of rowhouse development to continue toward the city's western edge at Cobbs Creek.[3]
Spotty maintenance of the cistern and natural erosion has caused occasional collapses of the buildings above. In the 1930s, several homes collapsed on Walnut Street between 43rd and 44th Streets were undermined by the creek. There have been road collapses on 43rd Street, south of Walnut. In 1955, the block of Sansom Street between 43rd and 44th Streets collapsed and was condemned. The creek undermines the roadbed where the Route 34 and Route 13 trolleys cross 43rd Street.
A prominent feature of Clark Park is its "bowl," once a mill pond fed by the creek.
Montgomery County has begun an effort to restore the creek's watershed through its Mill Creek Stream Restoration.[4]