Ren Renfa and his workers built the water gate on the Wusong River around 1300 during the Yuan Dynasty. Today, Suzhou Creek is small and less important than the Huangpu River, but it used to be bigger and more important for all the cities between Suzhou and the East China Sea. Dirt and sand in the river ("silt") slowly made it narrower and narrower. People built the water gate to help stop and wash away some of the dirt. The river changed its path to the south, the old gate became covered with dirt, and people forgot where it was.