Hog Island, Philadelphia

Hog Island
Neighborhood of Philadelphia
Workers reading the Hog Island News in 1918
Country	United States
State	Pennsylvania
County	Delaware County
City	Tinicum Township
Area code(s)	Area code 215

Hog Island is the historic name of an area southeast of Tinicum Township, Pennsylvania along the Delaware River, to the west of the mouth of the Schuylkill River. Philadelphia International Airport now sits on the land that was once Hog Island.

European settlers purchased Hog Island from the Lenape (Delaware) tribe in 1680. The settlers gradually developed the island by building log and earthwork dikes to minimize storm damage and convert the marshes into good grazing meadows. Hog Island supposedly got its name from the pigs which local residents left to roam free, as no fencing was needed.

In 1917, as part of the World War I effort, the US government contracted American International Shipbuilding to build ships and a shipyard at Hog Island. At the time Hog Island was the largest shipyard in the world, with 50 slipways. The first ship (named SS Quistconck for the Lenape name for the site) was christened August 5, 1918, by Edith Bolling Wilson, wife of US president Woodrow Wilson. The shipbuilding process practiced on Hog Island was an early experiment in standardized construction of ships. The ships built there, known as "Hog Islanders", were considered ugly but well built. In all, 122 Hog Islanders were built, mostly cargo ships, and a few troop transport ships. The shipbuilding continued until 1921, after which the facility was rapidly demolished. None of the ships were ready in time to participate in World War I, but many of them were involved in World War II. Two of the locomotive steam gantry cranes were sold as surplus to the city of Trenton, New Jersey, where they remain today as the Hog Island Cranes, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Another crane, a 20-ton Industrial locomotive crane, was sold to the Hyde, McFarlan & Burke contracting company.