Been There - Done That

As we all know the Buckeye Water District is in the process of building a new water plant and pumping station to supply water to the ville and all their other customers. When it goes into operation we will be getting our water from the river. The new water plant is out off Route 45 next to the Red Brick Church and the pumping plant is being built on the old tin mill land near the mouth of Little Yellow Creek.

As far back as I can remember we had always got our water from the reservoir. Believe it or not the reservoir is fed by Little Yellow Creek and at one time Wellsville water was considered the best and the purest in the state. However, the history of public supplied water goes back a bit further than my memory and Edgar Davidson had a good account of it in his book entitled Before The Memory Fades. There was a little written in the booklet City of Wellsville In Black and White but Mr. Davidson seems to have paraphrased and incorporated into his account what was written there.

With Wellsville growing by leaps and bounds it was determined that a water system was needed and in 1874 a special election was held. By a vote of 334 for and 39 against it was decided to go ahead with such plans. Things didn't move too fast back in those days either. Three years later in 1877 a Pittsburgh consulting engineer was hired to draw up plans for a public water system. His plan was to dam up the 10th Street stream and built a second dam further up on the hill "in the flat area" to supply Wellsville. This plan was rejected by the city fathers. The 10th Street stream is still there and I'm thinking the flat area mentioned is part of Springhill Cemetery. There was no cemetery up there 130 years ago.

In 1879 an ordinance was passed authorizing the construction of a water works, reservoir and laying of pipes. I couldn't determine where this reservoir was to be located. In 1881 council authorized the sale of $30,000 in bonds to pay for this and later an additional $10,000 was added. Fire hydrants must have been part of the plan. In 1884 an ordinance was passed concerning the tampering of fire plugs. Sometime in this era a pump station was built adjacent to the present day Jim Kenney Center. This is probably where the hump for the flood wall is today. Raw, untreated water was pumped from the river to supply the town.

Sometime around 1900 it was decided to spend $75,000 dollars for a "modern water works plant" which was to go into operation either in 1904 or 1908 depending on which book you read. Cast iron filter wells filled with gravel were sunk to the bed of the river. River water was allowed to "percolate" through these wells and then be pumped to a reservoir 320 feet above the city. Then by force of gravity the water supply was put into the system to supply the ville's residents. The building that is the Jim Kenney Center was built to house the pumps and machinery for this "modern water works". Here I thought that building originally had something to do with the railroad. The only problem back then was there still wasn't any filtration of the water. If the river was muddy, as it often is, the supply of water was muddy. Several public wells were drilled around town. When Mr. Davidson wrote his book he said there was only three left that he knew about. Today the only one I can locate is the one pictured above at 6th & Broadway. Most of the houses in those days either had their own wells or cisterns to collect rain water. Those that didn't shared with their neighbors. I have a brick lined cistern in my back yard. People that lived between 6th and 7th Streets on Buckeye Avenue tapped into a natural spring 200 feet up the hillside and had crystal clear water. Back then Buckeye was called Hill Street.

By 1920 the water supplied from the river had gotten so muddy and polluted that it was decided to use the water of the Little Yellow Creek. Twenty-five acres was purchased at an elevation of 900 feet which is some 200 feet above the sea level of Wellsville's 708 feet. Construction of a dam for the present day reservoir was started in 1923. When that went into operation the water supplied to the ville was chlorinated. Highlandtown Lake was to be an emergency source of water in case of a severe drought. In late December of 1938 a filtration plant was put into operation for this reservoir. It was the first time in our history that the residents of the ville was supplied with filtered water. The one million gallon water tank up on Highland Avenue was built then as part of the new developments in 1923.

So you can see that just about for all of us the only source of water we have ever known is water from the reservoir. Getting water from the river is new to us but as they say history repeats itself. We have been there before with our grand-parents and great grand-parents. The river provides an abundant supply of water. This time the water will be filtered and treated. The pumped pictured above is a historical monument of the ville's public water system. Yea, we've been there...

ole nib