Ridley Creek | |
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![]() Ridley Creek flowing through Ridley Creek State Park | |
Location | |
Country | United States |
State | Pennsylvania |
Counties | Chester, Delaware |
Physical characteristics | |
Source | |
• location | Frazer, Chester County |
• coordinates | 40°01′03″N75°32′22″W / 40.01750°N 75.53944°W [1] |
• elevation | 2,180 ft (660 m) [2] |
Mouth | Delaware River |
• location | Eddystone Borough, Delaware County |
• coordinates | 39°50′59″N75°20′38″W / 39.84972°N 75.34389°W [1] |
Length | 23.4 mi (37.7 km) [2] |
Basin size | 37.9 sq mi (98 km2) [3] |
Ridley Creek is a tributary of the Delaware River in Chester and Delaware counties, Pennsylvania in the United States. [4]
The entire drainage basin is in the suburban Philadelphia area, but the upper creek and extensive park lands on the creek retain a rural character, while the mouth of the creek has long been heavily industrialized. Its watershed is considered to have the highest quality water in Delaware County. [5] The creek was named for the parish of Ridley, Cheshire, England. [6]
Two branches of the creek rise between Malvern and Frazer in Chester County, and then join about a mile south in East Goshen Township (West Chester) just southeast of the intersection of Paoli Pike and Route 352. The creek flows south, then southeast to enter Delaware County and Ridley Creek State Park. Leaving the park, it passes the Tyler Arboretum and the town of Media, while entering a deep gorge. It passes local parks in Rose Valley and the Taylor Memorial Arboretum in Wallingford. Before flowing into the tidal Delaware River, it forms the border between the city of Chester and the borough of Eddystone.
The length from the confluence of the two branches to the mouth is about 22 miles (35 km); including the longer Northeast branch gives a length of about 23 miles (37 km).
The upper creek has Piedmont Upland geological features and the mouth has Coastal Plain features. Rocks include granite gneiss, mica schist, and sand and gravel. [7]
Seventeen municipalities, with a population of about 62,000, are included in the 38-square-mile (98 km2) watershed. The 40,000 residents of Upper Providence, Nether Providence, and Middletown townships, and Media use 2.7 million gallons per day of drinking water supplied from Aqua Pennsylvania's Media plant. [8]
Olof Persson Stille, a Swedish millwright who arrived in the area in 1641, settled on the north bank of the creek in present-day Eddystone, and the creek was called Olle Stille's Creek. [9] Thomas Holme's map of 1687 labeled the creek "Preest Cr." next to a land grant at the mouth of the creek labeled "Preest" and shows land grants from William Penn extending the length of the creek, into the Welsh Tract at the source. [10]
Water mills were established along the creek early in its history, including the Providence Mills gristmill in 1718, and the Old Mill in Rose Valley in 1789. Providence Mills, located in present-day Ridley Creek State Park and now known as Sycamore Mills, expanded to include a nail factory and a saw mill which operated until 1901. [11] The Old Mill started as a snuff mill, then became a paper mill, and finally a woolen textile mill, which operated until about 1880. [12]
In 1826 there were 15 mills operating on the creek, including gristmills, sawmills, cotton mills rolling and slitting mills, snuffmills, a tilt mill, and a woolen mill. [13]
The Leiper Railroad, which has a claim to be America's first railroad, operated from 1810-1828 between Thomas Leiper's quarry on Crum Creek to tidewater on Ridley Creek, a distance of about three-fourths mile. [14]
From 1906-1956 the Baldwin Locomotive Works operated north of the mouth of the creek along the Delaware in Eddystone. Today an Exelon generating plant operates in the area. In 2006 Harrah's Chester established a harness racing track and casino near the south bank of the creek at its confluence with the Delaware River.
Delaware County, colloquially referred to as Delco, is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. With a population of 576,830 as of the 2020 census, it is the fifth-most populous county in Pennsylvania and the third-smallest in area. The county was created on September 26, 1789, from part of Chester County and named for the Delaware River.
Eddystone is a borough in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,410 at the 2010 census.
Ridley Township is a township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 30,768 at the 2010 census. Ridley Township contains the (CDPs) of Folsom and Woodlyn, along with the unincorporated communities of Crum Lynne and Holmes and a portion of Secane.
Ridley Park is a borough in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 7,002 at the 2010 census. Ridley Park is the home of Boeing's CH-47 Chinook helicopter division.
Nether Providence Township is a first class township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. Many residents refer to the township by the name of its largest community, Wallingford, because the Wallingford postal code is used for most of the township. The population of the township was 13,706 at the 2010 census.
Upper Providence Township is a township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, located around and to the north of the borough of Media, and approximately 15 miles (24 km) west of center city Philadelphia. The population was 10,142 at the 2010 census. The township lies between Ridley Creek on the west and Crum Creek on the east. Most of Ridley Creek State Park is in the township, towards the northern edge. Zoning is 98% residential, 1% commercial and 1% industrial, with minimal space zoned to commercial business.
Darby Creek is a tributary of the Delaware River in Chester, Delaware and Philadelphia counties, in the U.S. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is approximately 26 miles (42 km) long. The watershed of the creek has an area of 77.2 square miles (200 km2). It has twelve named direct tributaries, including Cobbs Creek, Little Darby Creek, Ithan Creek, and Muckinipattis Creek. The creek has a low level of water quality for most of its length. The lower Darby Creek area was deemed a Superfund site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) due to contamination with dangerous chemicals from two landfills.
The Baltimore and Philadelphia Railroad was a railroad line built by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to the Maryland-Delaware state line, where it connected with the B&O's Philadelphia Branch to reach Baltimore, Maryland. It was built in the 1880s after the B&O lost access to its previous route to Philadelphia, the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B). The cost of building the new route, especially the Howard Street Tunnel on the connecting Baltimore Belt Line, led to the B&O's first bankruptcy. Today, the line is used by CSX Transportation for freight trains.
Ridley Creek State Park is a 2,606-acre (1,055 ha) Pennsylvania state park in Edgmont, Middletown, and Upper Providence Townships, Delaware County, Pennsylvania in the United States. The park, about 5 miles (8 km) north of the county seat of Media, offers many recreational activities, such as hiking, biking, fishing, and picnicking. Ridley Creek passes through the park. Highlights include a 5-mile (8 km) paved multi-use trail, a formal garden designed by the Olmsted Brothers, and Colonial Pennsylvania Plantation, which recreates daily life on a pre-Revolutionary farm. The park is adjacent to the John J. Tyler Arboretum. Ridley Creek State Park is just over 16 miles (26 km) from downtown, Philadelphia between Pennsylvania Route 352 and Pennsylvania Route 252 on Gradyville Road.
Chester Creek is a 9.4-mile-long (15.1 km) tributary of the Delaware River in Delaware County, Pennsylvania in the United States.
Crum Creek is a creek in Delaware County and Chester County, Pennsylvania, flowing approximately 24 miles (39 km), generally in a southward direction and draining into the Delaware River in Eddystone, Pennsylvania. It begins in a swamp near Newtown Square, Pennsylvania along which several mills were established in the 19th century. Right afterward it crosses under Pennsylvania Route 29 and winds one and a half miles (2.4 km) downstream until it hits the hamlet of Crum Creek. It later flows into the Delaware River near Philadelphia.
The Leiper Railroad was a 'family business–built' horse drawn railroad of 0.75 miles (1.21 km), constructed in 1810 after the quarry owner, Thomas Leiper, failed to obtain a charter with legal rights-of-way to instead build his desired canal along Crum Creek. The quarry man's 'make-do' railroad was the continent's first chartered railway, first operational non-temporary railway, first well-documented railroad, and first constructed railroad also meant to be permanent.
The credit of constructing the first permanent tramway in America may therefore be rightly given to Thomas Leiper. He was the owner of a fine quarry not far from Philadelphia, and was much concerned to find an easy mode of carrying stone to tide-water. That a railway would accomplish this end he seem to have had no doubt. To test the matter, and at the same time afford a public exhibition of the merits of tramways, he built a temporary track in the yard of the Bull's Head Tavern in Philadelphia. The tramway was some sixty feet long, had a grade of one inch and a half to the yard, and up it, to the amazement of the spectators, one horse used to draw a four-wheeled wagon loaded with a weight of ten thousand pounds. This was the summer of 1809. Before autumn laborers were at work building a railway from the quarry to the nearest landing, a distance of three quarters of a mile. In the spring of 1810 the road began to be used and continued in using during eighteen years.
by John Bach McMaster, page 494, A History of the People of the United States, from the Revolution to the Civil War
Ithan Creek is a tributary of Darby Creek in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is approximately 4.2 miles (6.8 km) long and flows through Radnor Township and Haverford Township. The creek's watershed has an area of 7.39 square miles (19.1 km2) and is highly developed. It has three named tributaries: Browns Run, Kirks Run, and Meadowbrook Run.
Early in the 19th century, the Leiper Canal built in 1828–29 during the middle of the American canal age ran about 3 miles (5 km) along Crum Creek in Delaware County to its mouth in eastern Pennsylvania's Delaware Valley carrying its owner‘s quarried products to docks on the Delaware River tidewater until 1852.
Thomas Leiper was a Scottish American businessman, banker and politician who owned a successful tobacco exportation business as well as several mills and stone quarries. He served as a lieutenant in the Philadelphia City Troop during the American Revolutionary War. He built one of the first railways in America and the first in Pennsylvania. The Leiper Railroad was a three-quarter-mile long track on his property in Nether Providence Township, Pennsylvania used to ship quarry stone to market with animal-powered carts.
Olof Persson Stille (1610–1684) was a pioneer settler of New Sweden, a colony along the lower reaches of the Delaware River in North America claimed by Sweden from 1638 to 1655. Stille served as the first chief justice of the Upland Court, the governing body of the New Sweden colony following Dutch West India Company annexation from Swedish colonial rule.
The Chester Secondary is an active railroad line in the U.S. states of Pennsylvania and Delaware. The line is operated by Conrail Shared Assets Operations, which serves as contract local carrier and switching company for both CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway. The line runs from Philadelphia to Claymont, Delaware, a distance of 14.9 miles (24.0 km). It traverses the namesake Stoney Creek, Chester Creek, Ridley Creek, Crum Creek and Darby Creek near their mouths along the shore of the Delaware River.
Little Darby Creek is a tributary of Darby Creek in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is approximately 2.6 miles (4.2 km) long and flows through Radnor Township.
The Port of Chester is an American port on the west bank of the Delaware River in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Centered around Chester it ranges into Marcus Hook to the south and Eddystone to the north. It is part of the Delaware Valley port complex and lies between the Port of Wilmington and the Port of Philadelphia. Traditionally, shipbuilding and later automobile assembly were the mainstays of the port. It has since given way to other manufacturing and recreational activities, with Penn Terminals the only traditional maritime facility.