Cobbs Creek
Cobbs Creek | |
---|---|
Location | |
Country | United States |
State | Pennsylvania |
Counties | Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware |
Cities | Philadelphia, Upper Darby, Darby, Millbourne |
Physical characteristics | |
Source | Cobbs Creek |
• location | Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States |
• coordinates | 40°00′54″N 75°19′32″W / 40.01500°N 75.32556°W |
• elevation | 377 ft (115 m) |
Mouth | Darby Creek |
• location | Darby, Pennsylvania, United States |
• coordinates | 39°54′23″N 75°15′11″W / 39.90639°N 75.25306°W |
• elevation | 0 ft (0 m) |
Length | 11.8 mi (19.0 km) |
Basin size | 100 sq mi (260 km2) |
Discharge | |
• location | Darby |
• minimum | 195 cu ft/s (5.5 m3/s) |
• maximum | 50,200 cu ft/s (1,420 m3/s) |
Discharge | |
• location | Darby |
Basin features | |
Tributaries | |
• left | Indian Creek, Mingo Creek |
• right | Thomas Run Creek, Paschall Creek |
Cobbs Creek is an 11.8-mile-long (19.0 km)
History
Prior to European colonization, Cobbs Creek was inhabited by the Lenape Native American tribe, who called the creek "Karakung," believed to mean "the place of the wild geese."[4] It was used primarily for hunting, fishing, transportation, and agriculture. Additionally, at the mouth of Mill Creek, a neighboring water source, there existed village named "Arronemink," meaning "where the fish cease." During the mid-1600s, Dutch and Swedish settlers arrived, draining the marshes surrounding the creek to make space for pastures, and leading to the displacement and forced migration of the Lenape away from the Cobbs and surrounding areas.[5]
This was the site of the historic Old Swede's Mill on the Karakong Kill which Governor
Recreation
Where Cobbs Creek borders Philadelphia, it is surrounded by Cobbs Creek Park which contains 851 acres (1.330 sq mi)[8] managed by the Philadelphia Parks & Recreation department since a merger of the Fairmount Park Commission and the Department of Recreation in 2010.[9] Cobbs Creek Park contains three playgrounds: Cobbs Creek Recreation Center at Cobbs Creek Parkway and Spruce Street, Granahan playground at 65th and Callowhill streets, and Charles Papa Playground, a part of Morris Park in Overbrook, just north of Cobbs Creek Golf Course. For many in West Philadelphia, Cobbs Creek is the primary hiking and recreation attraction, offering swimming, golf, ball fields, tracks, tennis and basketball courts, ice and roller hockey rinks, and campgrounds. The park and its numerous picnic spaces are popular with families during summer weekends and holidays for picnics, barbecues, reunions and parties.[10]
Community impact
The area covered by the Cobbs was part of a larger bioregion occupied by the Lenape tribe. Referred to as a "favorite place for Indians"[5] by settlers, the surrounding regions were also home to Lenape Native Peoples. This included the area in between the Schuylkill and the Cobbs, now known as Kingsessing. Nomenclature such as that of Kingsessing (derived from the Lenape term "Chingsessing," meaning "where there is meadow")[11] demonstrate the indigenous legacy still prevalent in the area. There remains a significant local Lenape community presence, with groups such as the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania, which hosted a 2018 river journey, creating a pledge with the surrounding community to support the Lenape peoples.[12]
Additionally, a more general history of the Lenape in the Philadelphia area reads as such: “The story of the Indigenous peoples of Philadelphia begins in the long-ago time with the emergence of Turtle and the earth that formed on its back. From this first earth, the first tree grew and so too did the first sprouts. These sprouts grew and grew and became First Man and First Woman and so the People first came to be. (Adapted from the first written emergence story of the Lenape 1679, as told by Lenape elder Tantaque, courtesy of Curtis Zunigha).”[13]
For many
Plans for an expressway up the Cobbs Creek valley began as early as 1930. Anticipated as part of a five-mile parkway system around Philadelphia, Cobbs Creek Expressway, designated
The Frankford Creek has a similar impact for Cheltenham Township and North Philadelphia children.
The Cobbs Creek Trail is part of the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000-mile long trail system connecting Maine to Florida.
Tributaries
- Naylors Run, runs underground in Upper Darby from Sherbrook Blvd. to Walnut Park Drive, where it drains into Cobbs Creek. Thousands of feet of Naylors Run were channeled into underground culverts to facilitate commercial and residential development in the filled land above the pipes.
- Indian Creek, originating near Montgomery County at Rt.1 running to the Haddington neighborhood of Philadelphia, the east and west branches of Indian Creek joined in what is now Morris Park, at the intersection of 69th Street and Haverford and Lansdowne Avenues. The most notable feature here being the Cobbs Creek Golf Course and Karakung Golf Course.
- Thomas Run Creek, obliterated and converted into a sewer, the largest tributary of Cobbs Creek once ran from about 53rd and Walnut streets, meeting Cobbs Creek around 60th Street.
- Paschall Creek
- Mingo Creek
See also
- List of parks in Philadelphia
- List of rivers of Pennsylvania
- Frankford Creek
- Cobbs Creek Resources[permanent dead link]
References
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map Archived 2016-06-30 at the Wayback Machine, accessed April 1, 2011
- ISBN 978-1-62585-134-5. Retrieved 30 August 2019.
- ^ Cobb's Creek in the Days of the Old Powder Mill
- ^ https://www.havtrail.com/history/HTHS_Native_Peoples_in_the_Haverford_Area.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ^ a b "Philly H2O: Cobbs Creek Watershed History". www.phillyh2o.org. Retrieved 2021-05-09.
- ISBN 0-7385-1336-9
- ^ Narratives Of early Pennsylvania west New Jersey and Delaware 1630-1707 (Edited by Albert Cook Myers. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1912)[ISBN missing] [1]
- ^ "The City of Philadelphia, Emerald Ash Borer Management Plan" (PDF). dcnr.state.pa.us. The City of Philadelphia. 2012. p. 2. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 19, 2016. Retrieved January 6, 2017.
The City contains approximately 6,781 acres of watershed parks including ... Cobbs Creek Park (851 ac.)
- ^ "Department History". phila.gov. The City of Philadelphia. n.d. Archived from the original on December 29, 2016. Retrieved January 6, 2017.
the Fairmount Park Commission, created in 1867, and the Philadelphia Department of Recreation, created in 1951...officially merged on July 1, 2010.
- ^ Philly H2O
- ^ "20 Local Native American Place Names and What They Mean". 12 October 2015. Archived from the original on 2015-10-15.
- ^ "Rising Nation River Journey | Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania". lenapenationofpa. Retrieved 2021-05-14.
- ^ AHAYES (2019-12-02). "Indigenous Peoples of Philadelphia". About ALA. Retrieved 2021-05-17.