Power Firms Threaten Delaware River Park With 200-Foot Towers

In the 1930s, several cities along the Delaware River proposed the construction of the largest dam east of the Mississippi, at Tocks Island, upstream of the Delaware Water Gap. The dam would generate electricity for the growing cities of Philadelphia and New York, and the resulting 37-mile-long lake would provide water to their residents.

The project lay dormant for years, but a 1955 flood in the region renewed interest in the proposal, and led the government to start buying up land and seizing homeowners’ property in preparation for the dam’s construction.