Flat Rock Dam – Built for Transporting Coal in 1818 – Was a Popular Recreation Site
And a Backdrop to Tragedies and Heroic Rescues
According to the Inquirer (April 11, 1965), Flat Rock Dam once formed a part of the historic Schuykill, dating to 1815. In that year, the State of Pennsylvania chartered the Schuylkill Navigation Company to construct a waterway and series of locks between Port Carbon (above Pottsville) and Philadelphia to carry upstate coal to city markets. The canal was first opened in 1825 and fully completed in 1828, with 32 dams and 72 locks along the 108-mile route.
“Flat Rock Dam Above Manayunk” 1867, Artist, Augustus Kollner – Source Free Library
Flat Rock Dam is one of these dams, and was built to create a pool to float canal boats above it, and to supply water to the Manayunk Reach of the canal below. It hid the site of Rummel Falls, a dangerous series of rapids in the river. Work started on the dam and locks about 1815, under the supervision of a Massachusetts engineer named Ariel Cooley, who also designed the Fairmount Dam. The job was completed in 1818.
The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad took over the canal system in 1870. Railroad development spelled its eventual doom and as a coal carrier it saw its last days in 1886.
By the late 19th century and in the early part of the 20th century, the area around the dam had become a popular recreation area, for swimming, boating and fishing.
But then, as now, the waters there could prove to be dangerous and occasionally fatal for those who did not take proper precautions.
Over the years, Flat Rock Dam has also been the site of numerous heroic rescues
Click individual images above to enlarge.
In February of 1904, damage from melting ice punched through the dam, threatening the water supply at the nearby Shawmont Pumping Station. It took almost two months until the breach was fully repaired.
1964 Water Ski show, Source Helen Weaver Youtube
Ron Costello is a writer who grew up in Belmont Hills, a community that overlooks the Schuylkill, and is within walking distance of Flat Rock Dam. He has penned three semi-autographical novels (and has one in the works) about growing up on “The Hill” during early to mid-sixties.
In Dead Kids Don’t Speak, Costello writes about fishing below Flat Rock Dam, and swimming above it.
In the early sixties, the river was a fishing wonderland. We waded through the shallow parts of the river out to the rocks and cast into the current. Using homemade sinkers to keep the bait down – carp and catfish are bottom feeders. When the tip of the rod jiggled, a carp or catty was tasting the bait. The big carp and catfish put up a great fight. In the afternoon, on hot days when the fish stopped biting, we stripped down to our underpants and dove into the river, before going home or into Manayunk to sell our booty. We often walked along the railroad tracks and through the Flat Rock Tunnel to fish and swim at the foot of the dam. It was a great place to build rafts, too, and float the slow water on the back side of the dam. No kid that I recall ever went over the dam.
In 2007, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection installed a Fish Ladder at Flat Rock Dam. At that time, Pete Bannan wrote in the Main Line Times “The ladder will allow the American Shad to migrate up the Schuykill River. Other fish will also be able to migrate, including eel and herring.Since 1999 Pennsylvania has stocked 2.5 million juvenile shad in the Schuykill and they have traced them returning to the Fairmount Dam. They have been blocked until now from migrating further upstream. by the Flat Rock Dam.”