The "Water Street Was Just That!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Driving north on South Water Street toward West King Street in the city known as Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  The narrow street is barely passable, even with one side of the street marked with "No Parking" signs.  I find that by using Water Street, it helps avoid traffic, even though the street is narrow.   The street is somewhat nondescript in a city that at one time was called Hickory Town.  Lancaster was part of the 1681 Penn's Woods Charter of William Penn.  The architect of the city was James Hamilton who laid out the street patterns in 1734.  It is one of the oldest inland towns in America and had the first paved road in the United States, known as the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike, which at the time went directly through the center of town.  

Shreiner-Concord Cemetery in Lancaster where
Water Street was believed to have begun.

And, at one point Water Street was exactly that, a stream which flowed from what is now Shreiner-Concord Cemetery at Mulberry and Chestnut Street, where U.S. Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, a member of the Underground Railroad, was buried, south to the Conestoga River.  Some of Hamilton's building lots were positioned along the stream and the waterway was used to transport sewage out of the city to the river.  When the stream overflowed due to storms, the waste from the homes became a danger to all who lived along the stream.  Eventually the stream was turned into a stone-lined sewer in 1745 to permit development on top of it.  A variety of names were given to the stream over the years including Roaring Brook to Bethel's Run to Hoffman's Run and also Gas House Run.  

Old black and white photograph showing Water Street
after the railroad tracks were added.

When the stream was covered with pavement it became a branch of the Lancaster-to-Quarryville Pennsyl- vania Railroad in the 1870s.  Once the tracks were in place, trains were able to traverse Water Street. Traveling theatre companies, who performed at the nearby Fulton Opera House which backed up to Water Street, began to transport their equipment by rail.  As Lancaster City grew in size, a wastewater treatment plant was built along the Conestoga to the south of the city in New Danville in 1935 to handle the water that ran under Water Street.  

A Steam engine traveling on Water Street.

By that time a variety of industries, from a tannery to a weaving mill to a utility company backed up to Water Street.  All seemed to be going well until Hurricane Agnes struct Lancaster  in 1972 and the railroad stopped service along Water Street.  Tracks no longer run north to south on Water Street, but storm water and sewage still flow toward the Conestoga River under it.  At times the flow becomes overwhelming and other procedures are needed.  My guess is that if Water Street's problems had been addressed today, they would have been addressed quite differently than they were back in the 1700s.  And, my drive north on Water Street might be strikingly different than what it was today.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.