Skate Level
Black Rock Dam, Schuylkill River
SCHUYLKILL RIVER
Anthracite Coal
Iron Ore
The flow of coal and iron came
down the Schuylkill River
to feed Philadelphia with the raw materials to fuel the
industrial revolution.
Image of the ruins at Skate Level, March 04, 2002.
Images of the remains of the last cooking utensils left by the
last occupants of Skate Level.
Photograph taken on March 04, 2002. Skate Level, Phoenixville, Pennsylvania,
19442.
SKATE LEVEL
BLACK ROCK DAM
According to Webster's Universal Dictionary 1936 edition, skate, n. A
worthless fellow; a pretender; an imposter. Skate Level, a flat
just below the head gate of the Phoenix Canal, once a landing for the Lenni
Lenape, whose village occupied the bluffs above, has know both good and bad
times. Log huts long forgotten housed the trading post where the
Lenni
Lenape were cheated out of there lands.
Now in ruins, the stone
structures that exist today, held a commanding position which controlled traffic on the Phoenix
Canal, where no doubt the boatmen were fleeced of money. For a short
while, the Irish track gangs, and tunnel blasters found what they desired at
Skate Level.
Slate Level was known as a
place to stay away from, not a place to be unless you had business that
required you to be on the wrong side of the tracks. And it was Skate Level
where the lone water boy first reported the death of the track gang in the
Black Rock Tunnel
Image of local youths crossing Black Rock Dam while
there friends await
on the Chester County Side. Photographed during the summer of 2000.
jimmy@jim-frizzell.com
Last Revised:
Sunday, August 26, 2007
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