It's All Trew: Well, in the past, water was work

The most significant problem facing the first Panhandle settlers was lack of water for their families and livestock. Hand-dug wells along creek bottoms came first. Hauling water gathered from the few surface springs into wooden whiskey barrels mounted on sleds was practiced where possible. When the Rock Island Railroad arrived, they hauled water in tank cars to fill cisterns built at section crew shacks along the way. Later, they dug wells, filling huge wooden storage tanks for the steam engines, and allowed settlers to get drinking water. Well-drilling equipment became available during the early 1880s, and it is believed the first such unit to arrive in the New Clarendon area was purchased by Smith & Sherrick. It immediately went to work drilling a water well for Charles Goodnight. Interviews conducted in 1929 by J. Evetts Haley and L.F. Micou told of these earliest efforts to find water on the plains. Both horse-powered and hand-powered drilling machines were used. In the low country below the caprock, hand-powered equipment was used with a crude tower, rolling block in the top and rope pulled by hand. Two men could dig 70 feet in a good day with drill bits weighing 15 to 25 pounds. Most wells in low country had no rock formations to go through, just sand, dirt and gravel. Another interview stated that horsepower for digging deeper wells was developed through a geared power wheel with horses walking in a circle, pulling the pole round and round. Deeper wells required winches to hold and pull ropes...read more