Mill Creek (Philadelphia)

at , Philadelphia , 19139 United States

1. Neighborhood

Description

Mill Creek rises in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania; runs southeasterly to West Philadelphia, where it enters 19th-century sewer pipes; and debouches roughly five miles later in the Schuylkill River near The Woodlands Cemetery.The creek, which drains about 5000acre, gave its name to a neighborhood in Philadelphia that it flows under.DevelopmentThe creek, called Nanganesey by the Lenape Indians in their patent to white settlers, was renamed Quarn Creek by the Swedish settlers. It later took the names Monson's Great Mill Fall, Mill Creek and Little Mill Creek after the factories it powered at Grays Ferry.Originally, Mill Creek was fast-flowing (10 miles per hour) and could discharge 300,000 cubic feet per minute into the Schuylkill. It was known to flood, destroying crops and creating seas of mud.In 1834, merchant and banker John Buckman built a 90-foot dam across Mill Creek just south of Market Street at current-day 46th Street. The dam diverted some of the water into a 12-foot-wide mill race that ran parallel to the Creek for about 1,100 feet and into a 30-by-60-foot "forebay." The water flowed under Market Street and over waterwheels that powered Buckman's mill.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.

Company Rating

8 FB users likes Mill Creek (Philadelphia), set it to 81 position in Likes Rating for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in Neighborhood category

Summary

Mill Creek (Philadelphia) is Philadelphia based place and this enity listed in Neighborhood category. 19139.