Wissahickon Spring House
Along a road. Along a river. Once this place was peppered with water-powered industry. Now it's a hiking trail peppered with deteriorating foundations and disappearing trails of a bygone life.
At various sites where springs came from the hills there were structures like these, often with troughs where horses could be watered. One can imagine the comings and goings of industry. Horses as beasts of burden. The stream as power for mills. People, parts, supplies, wagons coming and going. Trash and pollution of an earlier century strewn about.
Now this way is a sunken trail that runs through northwest neighborhoods of Philadelphia. Its woods are returning and the stream is likely cleaner than it has been for over a century.
Nature reclaims its own.