Volume 8 , Issue 5

Old Cisterns...

"I can't help on the 'cook shack' question, but let's talk about cisterns for a minute. In answer to the question, what happened to the old cistern cups?: Many are still around and folks buy them (at farm sales or antique stores) to paint little scenes on them for decorating a wall; just like the folks who paint old hand saws, or the one or two-man cross-cut saws that were used for clearing timber.

My cistern story will be different from others you might receive because the cistern I was familiar with was used by the town of Britton, Oklahoma before they built the big new water tower (later removed when the town became part of Oklahoma City). This 'water storage tank' was mostly above ground and was constructed entirely of concrete (except for a wooden cover about 4 foot in diameter over what, I presume, was an inspection hole or a place to add chemicals). It was circular in design and I would guess that it was probably about 30-feet in diameter and at least 12 to 15 feet deep. Plus... it had large pebbles in the bottom. This tank was apparently used as a holding tank between two pumps. One pumping water in from a deep well and the other to pump the water up to the tower above. Naturally, we kids were told to stay away from it, but being curious, we didn't. My family had moved next door (probably about 500 feet from it) and there were at least 3 of us who pried the cover off that hole and (on a dare) swam in that cool water (which had been the towns source of drinking water before they built the new water tower). I'm presuming that it was no longer in use, but still had clear water in it at the time, and we used some sort of a rope to get in and out. The smaller water tower had already been torn down but this concrete cistern or water storage-tank remained for another few years.

I'm not even certain that people who remember them as 'rain gatherers' would classify that big tank as a cistern, but it was referred to as that when I was about 10 to 12 years old, and the thing was there until I was about 17 or 18, perhaps longer. I may still have some cistern cups in storage somewhere. At one time, my antique mall had a complete 'cistern delivery system' with the cistern cups still connected together. I think that one may have been hand cranked.

There's also a small cistern here at this mall, in which rain water coming off a roof into a downspout goes into before going on down into the ground to help feed an underground stream. Inside that same building is a 'dug' well with a concrete cover that has a couple of holes for a pump. In earlier days, I'm told that the well was used to water livestock (mostly horses), coming into town off the trail. Even as dry as our county is, there's still a fair supply of water in that well and it's only about 30 feet down I think.

Aha! I just took a 100' fiberglass tape measure, fastened a padlock to it for a weight and dropped it in. It hit bottom at 27' and when I pulled it up, the tape was wet for more than 10' which means I could draw at least 10 feet of water out of it (which would be a minimum of 30 gallons if the water wasn't flowing into it). Since it's fed by an underground stream which we think is about 10 to 30 miles long (no one is certain where it starts, but could come from Black Bear Creek or perhaps Red Rock Creek), there might be an endless supply of clear water. We know that the stream snakes south and north underground across highway US64 at least 2 or 3 times and has fed several local wells in the past. Some folks think it might be an underground river or even a lake. A few years ago there was a 6 to 8 foot in diameter sink-hole in an alley a block north of here that took at least 5 loads of gravel to make it passable for garbage trucks again. This same underground source feeds wells at the county courthouse so it is used during drouth conditions to keep the grass and trees green." -- Roy

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