Six Mile Creek (Ithaca)

Six Mile Creek is a 20-mile long creek in Tompkins County, New York. It originates in the Town of Dryden near the intersection of Irish Settlement Road (New York State Route 162A) and Card Road, and drains into Cayuga Lake. Its watershed is the principal source of drinking water for the City of Ithaca, New York and the surrounding communities.

The headwaters lie on private land situated between Yellow Barn State Forest to the northwest and Hammond Hill State Forest to the southeast. It then flows south into the Town of Caroline, flowing parallel to Six Hundred Road and then crossing beneath New York State Route 79 in Slaterville Springs, after which it turns west until Brooktondale. There it turns northwest entering the Town of Ithaca. From there, the flow is interrupted by a series of dams, and then has its outlet at the Cayuga Inlet below the southern end of Cayuga Lake in the City of Ithaca.

Glaciation advanced and retreated along the creek valley in the late Epoch until about 17,500 years ago, although the exact details are debated. The main ice tongues split near modern-day Brooktondale, resulting in different hydrogeology between the upper valley, from the headwaters to Brooktondale, and the lower valley between Brooktondale and the outlet. Much of the upper valley is characterized by steep gorge walls. Because the lower valley was filled with sediments as the glaciers retreated, the new channel initially flowed without regard to its pre-glacial location. Over time, it washed away sediment filling pre-glacial gorges in some places, whereas in other reaches it cut into the bedrock to create new post-glacial gorges. As the post-glacial gorges are narrower than the re-excavated pre-glacial gorges, the lower valley takes on the appearance of beads on a string.

The lower creek valley was a transportation route into Ithaca. The Cayuga people named the creek Teegastoweas. It was given its current name by English settlers, marking the distance from the crossing near Brooktondale to the trail junction at the Cascadilla crossing in Ithaca. Water flowing down the steep valley powered numerous sawmills in the area, and at least one grist mill, the Van Natta Mill in Ithaca.

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