By Ricky Rieckert
(Part 2)
Greetings readers! I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day.
I have enjoyed participating and watching the parades in the Aurora downtown. What has been growing all the time, is the number of people attending and all the different nationalities in attendance.
Seeing that, makes me proud to be an Auroran. I think that symbolizes and shows thankfulness to the men and women who have served and given their lives to keep our great country safe and out of harm’s way.
May God bless all of them and may their families and friends always remember them on that day.
Here we go with part 2 of Aurora’s water.
As I previously wrote, the island north of Aurora, now called Indian Trail Island, was to be used for the public water supply.
There was a great deal of concern and objection from citizens to drink River water, however, City engineer, Chester Davis, insisted that the water was being pumped from a well on the island.
The island intake structure, or collection well, was connected to the City Water Works pumping station which was completed in March of 1886, at a cost of $150,000.
The Water Works pumping station used steam pumps with a capacity of four million gallons per day. The average day capacity of 1889 was 800,000 gallons.
When completed, the works consisted of more than 20 miles of mains, 245 hydrants, and a steel standpipe 18-feet in diameter, holding 283,000 gallons.
The River water source was abandoned in 1892 when the City drilled its first deep well.
This well used an air lift pump that literally blew the water up from 190 feet below the surface by means of air pressure.
The well, Well No.1, was originally drilled to 1,381 feet, but later was deepened to 2,235 feet.
By 1895, wells No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4 were drilled and supplied Aurora’s average demand of 1.96 million gallons per day .
Eight additional deep wells were drilled from 1911 to 1929 to meet the growth of Aurora.
The next major water works project began in 1933 by securing WPA (Works Progress Administration) assistance.
A side note on the WPA: It was a U.S. New Deal agency created in 1935, by then president Franklin D. Roosevelt, to provide employment and infrastructure projects during the Great Depression. It employed more than 8.5 million Americans in various projects, including public works, such as building schools, hospitals, and roads, as well as artistic projects including murals, sculptures, and writing programs. The WPA had a lasting impact on the landscape and culture of the United States.
My grandfather, Ernest Rieckert, Sr., was a part of the WPA project that hand dug Mastodon Lake at Phillip’s Park, here in Aurora.
The Water Works project included a 1.5 million gallon water tower on Hill Avenue (demolished in 2013), drilling of Aurora’s 13th well (which was named well 12A), construction of a four million gallon reservoir, and construction of the Main Pumping Station which was capable of pumping nine million gallons of water a day. This, along with several miles of water mains, were completed in 1935 for $505,000.
With the growth of Aurora’s west side, a 1.5 million gallon water tower was constructed in 1964. Additional deep wells were drilled as needed for supply.
In 1976 a 1.5 million gallon hydro pillar was constructed in the northeast section of Aurora, which separated the distribution system into two pressure zones.
Additionally, in 1976, a booster pump station, a deep well, and two one million gallon ground storage tanks were constructed to satisfy the fire flow requirements of the Westfield Fox Valley Shopping Center.
Part 3 will be next week.