July 8 Susquehanna Bicycle Ride

The west branch of the Susquehanna River flows past Williamsport PA. The scene above is from a bridge over the wide river. A greenway on either side of the river makes for a nice bicycle ride. The greenway sits atop a levee. Initially I thought the route was an old railbed but after making some tight turns, I realized it could not be a railbed. The levee was quite high on both sides of the river. It appeared to have relief outlets on the exterior side to allow some water to escape should the river attain a threatening level. 

The riverbanks are US govt property. The levees were built and are controlled by the Army Core of Engineers. It must have been an easy decision to put a greenway atop the levee. 

This area of Pennsylvania was heavily timbered in the latter part of the 1800s. In 1851, a 7 mile boom was built to collect logs being floated down the river. Dozens of sawmills operated in Williamsport area. Getting the logs to the sawmill was, at that time, best accomplished by floating them to the sawmill. In order to corral the logs a boom was built extending 7 miles upriver. The boom consisted of 352 "cribs". Cribs were man made islands of lumber and stone. There were placed about 100 feet apart and stood 22 feet high. Between these cribs, chains were strung to catch the logs. There was a curve in the river which forced all the logs to naturally flow to the south side. Here the boom caught them. "Boom rats" identified the logs by markings and rafted them to the proper sawmill. The boom operated for over 50 years. In 1894 a flood damaged it, losing 2 million board feet of lumber in the process. By 1909 the timber had been cut to such a degree, there was no need to continue lumbering operations. 

Here are remnants of cribs along the river.