Breaking the Ice

Massive icebreakers protect the aqueduct's piers. John Roebling designed these plow-like structures to break up ice and deflect debris flowing down the Delaware. In some winters, ice may build up to six feet thick. A photograph taken about 1910, when the towpaths were sawn off, shows the pointed masonry piers without their canal-era wooden coverings. The National Park Service rebuilt the icebreakers and elevated towpaths in the 1980s and '90s as part of a major effort to rehabilitate the structure. Large blocks of ice and floating debris, which scour trees and rock ledges along the riverbanks, also chip away at the wooden icebreakers, and high water marks and recent damage remain visible.

Pennsylvania · United States