A hundred years ago and before, several methods were used to get water. The ideal solution was to build your house beside a stream. People also caught the rain water running off the roof or sometimes they hauled it in barrels from a nearby stream. Occasionally, they dammed creeks and dug canals to bring water to their homes and farms, and when time permitted, they dug a well.         Even if there was a creek or lake in the immediate vicinity of their homes, the old timers often dug a well anyway. This might not make too much sense today, as they had water right there where they could fill their buckets. But even in those early days they had to be concerned with water contamination and having safe water to drink. The old timers used the earth between their well and the water source as a filter of sorts. First, only a shallow well was necessary as the water from the stream or lake would seep through the rocks and earth to fill the well. Often, although usually not true today, this was all that was needed to insure their water was safe to drink.         A hundred and fifty years ago when a homesteader wanted a well, he had to dig it by hand. The space required for digging it required that the diameter of the well be quite large so the well digger would have room to maneuver with his pick, a short handled shovel and a heavy steel bar. Old Well - Photo sent in by Sid.         For homesteaders that weren’t lucky enough to have a piece of land bordering a stream, a well became much more important. Without a well they were required to haul the water, sometimes over long distances in a horse drawn wagon. Usually, when the homestead was first moved onto, they’d haul their water. But every spare moment was spent digging a well, eagerly awaiting that exciting last swing of the pick that would often send a flood of water filling the bottom of the well. This process could take weeks, and if there were layers of rock, months, in their downward search to find the water table. Always, it was a joyous occasion when their well became active and they could discontinue the long treks to the nearest creek or river to fill their barrels.         Yes, a well was truly a luxury, something to be sought after. But there was still a lot of work involved getting the water out of the well. Many families had the traditional windlass under a small roof over the well’s opening. But there were also many other systems rigged up by early pioneers to get the water to the surface. Some simply had a bucket on the end of a rope that had to be pulled up. Other wells had a large wooden beam over the top of the well opening, with a cable going from the bucket, up through a pulley on the beam, then the cable was hooked to the harness of a horse or mule which pulled the water up in a very large bucket. When they could afford it, farmers, bought a windmill which drove a water pump, dumping the water into a trough. But a bucket was always kept handy for those days when the wind didn’t blow. Often, between uses, the top of the well was covered with boards to prevent children, pets and foreign debris from falling in the well.         Digging a well was amazingly difficult work fraught with danger if not done correctly. More than one well digger has lost his life from the side walls of the well caving in on him. Most of us today, when we think of an old, hand dug well, think of a neat, round well shaft lined with brick. Interestingly enough, in the early days this rather expensive method wasn’t the standard way well walls were reinforced. The typical well shaft of 150 years ago was square, rather than being round. And instead of bricks, the walls of the well were reinforced with rough boards commonly referred to as curbing.         Digging the first few feet were always the easiest with the dirt and rocks thrown out of the well by the person digging it. But just as soon as the well got a little depth to it, well digging became at least a two man job with an additional person on top. His job was to raise the bucket filled with dirt, empty it, and lower it back down into the well. The person in the bottom of the well used a pick, shovel, and sometimes a long, heavy steel rod maybe 6 feet long. The rod was thrust down into the ground, breaking up the rocks, clay and gravel. Then he’d fill the bucket, give a shout, and the bucket would ascend yet again. The person on top not only hauled the earth up but he also lowered the boards, nails and hammer into the well. After digging down another two feet, the person in the bottom of the well would stop digging. Using the boards lowered down to him, he’d box the walls in preventing a cave-in. This was necessary throughout the length of the well shaft except where it passed through especially hard earth or rocks where there was no worry about the walls giving way. Often they hit layers of rock. If they couldn’t be easily broken up with the steel bar or pick, holes were drilled into the rock. These self reliant peoples often made the bits for the rock drilling themselves on their personal forges. Dynamite was inserted in the holes and the rock was blasted away. Yes, digging a well could end up being quite the project!!! But finally, if they kept digging long enough, the long awaited payoff came. Water! And if they were extremely lucky they might even find an artesian well whose water would flow to the surface and run out the top. But this didn’t happen very often. If they were unlucky, they might find the new-found water was unfit for drinking. It was always possible for it to be red with rust from iron rich earth, have so much sulfur that it smelled like rotten eggs or some other mineral that made it unfit for anything but maybe watering the garden.         It seemed the work was never done on the well, even after it was put into operation. At least once a year someone had to go down into the well and clean it out. The wind blew leaves, insects and everything imaginable down into the well which often contaminated it. Unless the water was too far down, mice, frogs and snakes could smell the water and fall in resulting in coliform bacteria getting into the water. Usually, one of the children got saddled with the annual clean-up job. This was really a dirty job. By now, the boards near the water were covered with moss and algae, slick and slimy. He’d clean this off the best he could and send up buckets of mud. Every five years or so, someone else had to go down and replace the rotting boards. The rotting wood formed tannic acid that made the water unpleasant to drink. If they waited too long to do this, the side boards could break and permit a cave-in meaning the well had to be dug back out. This created a lot of unnecessary work that could be avoided with a little vigilance and prevent the temporary loss of their water supply.         Those old wells often doubled as refrigerators in the old days. Milk, cream, butter, and anything they wanted to keep cool were often lowered down into the coolness of the well shaft.         The hand-dug wells of yesteryear are mostly gone now. Gone also are many of the really difficult times that came with taming a new land. Modern wells can now be drilled with rigs that can progress at a rate of hundreds of feet on a good day. An electric pump is then lowered down the steel casing into the water and the top of the well is capped and sealed to prevent anything from ever getting into the well and contaminating it. Like most things in our times, digging a well has changed dramatically.         We are looking for a couple of old-time wells to feature on this page. If you have or know of an old well that’s still in use and would like to see it showcased here, please just let us know.         Thanks, Al

A little water well story about my grandpa as told by my mom... "...I spent the first years of my life on a tiny little homestead in the mountains of Idaho during the Great Depression. Our tiny farm produced little and what could be grown, because of the depression, couldn’t be sold for enough to do anything with. Usually, there was precious little to eat. Daddy used to call the place 'Poverty Flats.' As a little girl, our suppers usually consisted of home made bread and milk. Sometimes, Mother would let us sprinkle a little sugar over the top of the bread. We put it in our glass and that was our supper every night. It was good and we loved it. We didn’t have any other food. Not willing to see his little family eat nothing but bread and milk, Daddy went up into the mountains and shot a moose out of season then hung it up in the barn. "Once a car came along the road that passed 1/4 mile from our house. It stopped and a man got out to open the fence to drive in. Daddy was petrified it might be federal officers. He ran to the barn, unhooked the moose hanging there and lowered it down the well. We knew they’d never look there. The car ended up being some of the neighbors who had come for something. After they left, we took the moose out of the well and put it back in the barn. I have bright childhood memories of a huge moose roast sitting on an otherwise scantily set table. We never wasted a thing..."