1949_06_mom_pump
Mom and Pop drove the well by hand. First they dug a pit in the sand, about a shoulder deep. Then they drove a "point" (a perforated pipe with a brass screen behind its holes and a point at one end) into the ground, adding additional lengths of pipe as the point and the lengths following were driven down. Their driver was an iron pipe about four inches wide with a cap at one end, and about a third filled with lead. This fit over the top of the pipe like a loose sock on a foot and weighed about 75 pounds. One drove the well by lifting and dropping the pipe, over and over, each time driving the pipe down some fraction of an inch. Water was found at about 30 feet deep in this first well, which we replaced with another well about 60 feet deep a few years later, after the first well's point clogged up. Our living room/kitchen was built around the hand-pump above. We also had no electricity or additional plumbing — at least not for several years. I still remember the sound the pump made, even though we only used it until I was four or five years old. The water was wonderful, coming from what I much later learned was one of the purest aquifers in the world.
1949_06_mom_pump
Mom and Pop drove the well by hand. First they dug a pit in the sand, about a shoulder deep. Then they drove a "point" (a perforated pipe with a brass screen behind its holes and a point at one end) into the ground, adding additional lengths of pipe as the point and the lengths following were driven down. Their driver was an iron pipe about four inches wide with a cap at one end, and about a third filled with lead. This fit over the top of the pipe like a loose sock on a foot and weighed about 75 pounds. One drove the well by lifting and dropping the pipe, over and over, each time driving the pipe down some fraction of an inch. Water was found at about 30 feet deep in this first well, which we replaced with another well about 60 feet deep a few years later, after the first well's point clogged up. Our living room/kitchen was built around the hand-pump above. We also had no electricity or additional plumbing — at least not for several years. I still remember the sound the pump made, even though we only used it until I was four or five years old. The water was wonderful, coming from what I much later learned was one of the purest aquifers in the world.