Wills Creek is a 38.6-mile-long (62.1 km)[1]tributary of theNorth Branch Potomac River inPennsylvania andMaryland in theUnited States.
Wills Creek drops off theAllegheny Mountains of southeasternSomerset County, Pennsylvania, beginning on the western slope ofSavage Mountain[2] inLarimer Township. It flows intoNorthampton Township, passing through Mance, Philson Station, and Glencoe. Wills Creek continues intoFairhope Township, passing through Foley,Fairhope, and Williams Station on its course eastward. Wills Creek entersBedford County, Pennsylvania, inLondonderry Township, passing throughHyndman and making a sharp turn southward. It crosses from Pennsylvania into Maryland nearEllerslie inAllegany County, Maryland. It then runs pastCorriganville and nearNarrows Park before entering the North Branch Potomac River atCumberland, Maryland.
Tributaries along the initial section of Wills Creek include Laurel Run, Mountain Run,Brush Creek, Shaffers Run, and Gooseberry Run, all joining beforeLittle Wills Creek flows into Wills Creek at Hyndman. As Wills Creek flows south, Thompson Run and Gladdens Run add their waters,Jennings Run joins at Corriganville, and Braddock Run flows into Wills Creek near Narrows Park.
Wills Creek was named afterWill's Town, a former settlement of theShawnee Indians at the site of Cumberland, Maryland.[3] After the Shawnee deserted this region, an Indian namedWill lived a short distance from the site of the old Shawnee town at the mouth ofCaiuctucuc Cr. At the time of the coming of the first white settlers he was living in a cabin on the mountain side. The creek, mountain, and town were afterward named for him. "Will's creek" is noted on the maps ofLewis Evans (1755) and Scull (1759, 1770), and on the map inChristopher Gist's journal. (See Hodge, 1912)
In the early twentieth century, pollution from industrial waste and household sewage was a problem, since many businesses and homes dumped their waste directly into Wills Creek in the urban area of Cumberland.[4]
In the 1950s, the city of Cumberland and theUnited States Army Corps of Engineers embarked upon an $18.5 millionflood control program along a stretch of Wills Creek bordering the city. The project was one of the most costly public works projects in the city's history. Disastrous floods from Wills Creek had ravaged Cumberland, particularly in 1924, 1936, and 1942, and the Army Corps of Engineers designed a system that would prevent property damage caused by the high waters. It began just upstream from the bridge atU.S. Route 40, where the corps paved the bottom of Wills Creek, constructing concrete walls along its banks, and with the building of a sophisticated pumping system to prevent the watershed from flooding during heavy rain. The work took a decade to complete and was finished in 1959. It has successfully prevented flooding ever since.
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