Mill Creek Historic District (Boundary Increase)

Along Mill Creek in Lower Merion Township, a wooded ravine about ten miles from central Philadelphia holds a cluster of water-powered mills, mill workers' houses and mill ruins dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The creek's fall of roughly 250 feet made it a valuable source of power, and the earliest recorded mill was built by John Roberts. Christopher Robins constructed a mill here in 1758, and the Walover/Jones Mill complex, possibly dating to the same year, is the most intact of the mill communities. Paper was the main product in the eighteenth century, and later mills turned to gunpowder, lamp wicks, textiles and gun parts. Nippes began making long guns here in 1814. The district is also significant for its large estate houses and twentieth century residences, and for archaeological sites that may show how mill workers and owners lived.