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Mill Creek

    Barricade 4300 Sansom 1953

    Barricade erected in front of homes on the 4300 block of Sansom Street, the 30-foot-deep, block-wide hole (shown here in June 1953) caused by the sewer cave in of August 1952

    Mill Creek Sewer 1922

    Mill Creek Sewer in 1922

    Mill Creek at 43rd & Sansom

    Building the Mill Creek sewer culvert at 43rd and Sansom Street, late 1880s, image showing landfill buildup to meet West Philadelphia's street grid. 

    Clark Park Bowl

    Once the Mill Creek Pond in Maylandville, today the "bowl" in Clark Park, between Chester and Kingsessing avenues.

    Map of Blockley Township 1849

    Mill Creek in the mid-19th century, shown here flowing southeast from Mill Pond and Maylander Dam

    Nineteenth Century Transformation: From Industrial Stream to Buried Sewer

    In the early 19th century, textile mills arose along Mill Creek. The late 19th century saw the “burial” of the creek in a culverted sewer, which extended from the future intersection of City Line Avenue near 63rd Street to the Schuylkill River below Baltimore Avenue.  

    Aspen Farms Community Garden
    Mill Creek

    Mill Creek, once a power source for various mills, achieved notoriety in the 20th century as an underground culverted sewer and submerged floodplain that wreaked havoc with the West Philadelphia landscape.

    Aspen Farms "Main Street"

    Aspen Farms "Main Street"

    Mill Street Sewer Cave-In

    The appalling scene on the 4300 block of Sansom Street, 9 August 1952. "Pit mined by water escaping from breaks in the sewer carrying Mill Creek underground, extends from curb to curb. Hole measures 40 by 30 feet with a depth of 35 feet."

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