Cobbs Creek used to be called "Karakung" by Native Americans. This was the site of the historic Old Swede's Mill on the Karakong Kill which Governor Johan Printz, governor of New Sweden had built during 1645. It was the first water mill built within the limits of Pennsylvania. Its site may still be seen at the rocks on the east bank of the stream near the Blue Bell Inn on the road from Philadelphia to Darby. There were a few mills established around the portion of the river located along Karakung Drive in Haverford Township. Nitre Hall Powder Mills were built in the early 19th century along Cobb’s Creek on Karakung Drive. It was a center for manufacture for almost 200 years.
Recreation
Where Cobbs Creek borders Philadelphia, it is surrounded by Cobbs Creek Park which contains managed by the Philadelphia Parks & Recreation department since a merger of the Fairmount Park Commission and the Department of Recreation in 2010. Cobbs Creek Park contains three playgrounds: Cobbs Creek Recreation Center at Cobbs Creek Parkway and Spruce Street, Granahan playground at 65th and Callowhill streets, and Charles Papa Playground, a part of Morris Park in Overbrook, just north of Cobbs Creek Golf Course. For many in West Philadelphia, Cobbs Creek is the primary hiking and recreation attraction, offering swimming, golf, ball fields, tracks, tennis and basketball courts, ice and roller hockey rinks, and campgrounds. The park and its numerous picnic spaces are popular with families during summer weekends and holidays for picnics, barbecues, reunions and parties.
Community impact
For many West Philadelphia and Upper Darby children, Cobbs Creek is their first introduction to wooded greenspaces and freshwater ecosystems. Local schools run service learning activities to support conservation in the creek and surrounding parks; e.g., conducting water-quality studies to track pollution. The wildlife includes regional birds, raccoons, opossums, spotted deer, wild turkey, rabbits, and in recent history, even a mountain lion. Plans for an expressway up the Cobbs Creek valley began as early as 1930. Anticipated as part of a five-mile parkway system around Philadelphia, Cobbs Creek Expressway, designated I-695, would have begun at I-95 near Essington and connected with another expressway at Whitby Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia. The proposals were abandoned in the mid-1970s after community objections. The Frankford Creek has a similar impact for Cheltenham and North Philadelphia children. The Cobbs Creek Trail is part of the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000 mile long trail system connecting Maine to Florida.
Tributaries
Naylors Run Creek, runs underground in Upper Darby from Sherbrook Blvd. to Walnut Park Drive, where it drains into Cobbs Creek. Thousands of feet of Naylor's Run were channeled into underground culverts to facilitate commercial and residential development in the filled land above the pipes.
Indian Creek, originating near Montgomery County at Rt.1 running to the Haddington neighborhood of Philadelphia, the east and west branches of Indian Creek joined in what is now Morris Park, at the intersection of 69th Street and Haverford and Lansdowne Avenues. The most notable feature here being the Cobbs Creek Golf Course and Karakung Golf Course.
Thomas Run Creek, obliterated and converted into a sewer, the largest tributary of Cobbs Creek once ran from about 53rd and Walnut streets, meeting Cobbs Creek around 60th Street.
