Like other 19th century American towns, Aiken’s population growth drove the need for a municipal waterworks. The difficulty was finding adequate water in a town renowned for its dryness.

By Jeff Dexter

In the Beginning

In the early 1830s, a tiny town was created at a crossroads in the wilderness of western South Carolina. As history would have it, it was one of the first, if not the first town in the country created specifically for purposes of the railroad. Another historical first was the railroad that was routed through that town — the South Carolina Canal & Rail Road, which ran from Charleston to Hamburg. At 136 miles in length, it was, at the time, the longest rail line in the world. In 1835 that tiny town in the wilderness was incorporated and named Aiken after the president of that railroad, William Aiken. 

Unlike most 19th century towns, which were sited along rivers and other waterways, it was the lack of water that put Aiken on the map. The route of the rail line across the state was carefully chosen to avoid rivers, streams, and swamps wherever possible. Located high on a sandy ridge between the Savannah and Edisto Rivers, its elevation relatively high in the surrounding landscape, the site of Aiken perfectly fit this specification; it had very little water.

ABOVE: Aiken County, State of South Carolina, geological & agricultural map, compiled from railroad, coast & state surveys by Williams & Chism. Circa 1870.

In fact, during Aiken’s infancy, the town had only one reliable source of pure, clean water– a small spring, Coker Spring, located over half a mile south of the business district. 

Coker Spring

The history of Coker Spring is as colorful as it is long. Pottery relics found at the site during a 20th century restoration effort showed that the spring had been used for thousands of years by native people. During the 1700s, the spring served as a stagecoach stop. In the 1840s, the site was acquired by a Charleston attorney, who deeded the spring to the people of Aiken, who relied on the spring’s water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, bathing, laundry, and watering cattle, mules and horses. Bath houses, laundry camps, and a soap-making concern were established at the site.

April 1874 advertisement for Coker Spring Grove posted in The Aiken Journal.

The site — a picturesque valley with large oak trees, pines and kalmia — was also a favorite area for picnics and parties. In the 1860s, the Coker Spring would serve as a camp for Civil War troops. From 1874-1875, the area was opened as a park by a private interest, who built a pavilion and bath house, called Coker Spring Grove, for picnics, parties and dancing.

In 1875, a violent storm system that spun tornadoes and a path of death and destruction from Galveston, Texas to Florence, SC passed through the Coker Spring area, reportedly felling nearly every tree in the valley. 

The spring endured, however, continuing to serve as Aiken’s primary source for clean water. Those with the means —ox cart, barrels, buckets and time — could go down, collect the water and haul it back. The spring’s modest supply, (5 gallons per minute on a good day), sufficed, to a point. The town was growing.

Since the beginning, the same dry climate that had drawn the railroad to Aiken also drew visitors from the Low Country seeking escape from the heat, humidity and malaria. As word spread of its exceedingly dry air and relatively cooler temps — and the healthful benefits of this climate — Aiken became established as a health resort. For the duration of the 19th century, the town’s reputation spread far and wide to all points on the map, drawing, as well, a population of Winter Colony residents who built large mansions and estates. By the 1870s-1880s, the demand for water was exceeding what Coker Spring could supply. Aiken needed a better solution. Aiken needed water. 

The Early Systems of Cisterns and Wells

Those with the means to do so built 6 to 7-foot diameter underground brick-and-mortar vessels, called cisterns, to capture rainwater. A system of gutters and downspouts transported the rainwater from their roofs into the sealed chambers of the cistern. Most times, but not always, the water would be, first, routed through a barrel of sand or charcoal for filtration before reaching its final destination.

The level of filtration was driven by the intended uses of the water — drinking, cooking, bathing, cleaning, laundry, gardens and/or fire suppression. Various methods of heat and chemical sterilization were also used to make water suitable for drinking. In addition, cisterns required regular inspection and cleaning to prevent the accumulation of dirt, debris and sediment within. Contamination and pollution were always a risk. Newspaper accounts of that era attested to the hazards of drinking unclean water.

ABOVE: Account from the Aiken Journal and Review, June 10, 1885.

Those without the means to construct a complicated home cistern system congregated at the wells that the city leaders had provided at the intersection of certain city streets to draw their water. City wells were similar to those often see often seen in fairytale books, with the quaint little roof sheltering a hand crank that would lower a rope with a small bucket tied to it to collect the water.

“Aiken Water Works.”¹ Photograph by J.A. Palmer. Handwritten note reads, “What looks like snow is white sand all the streets are the same.” The belfry of St. Thaddeus Church is visible in the background, suggesting a Greenville Street location for this well.

Due to Aiken’s relatively high elevation and the depth of the sandy plateau on which the it rested, wells had to be dug deep — upwards of 100-150 feet— which made for a laborious effort by the hand-digging methods of the day. Once finished, it was no small effort to crank that rope up and down to collect even the smallest amount of water. City wells were prone, as were the residential cisterns, to contamination by unwanted animal and mineral elements. Aiken surely did need water. 

“View of the principle street at Aiken” from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, May 22, 1869. Illustration of Laurens Street viewed from the intersection of Richland Avenue. Note the women in the foreground, right, carrying water from the well, its lattice siding partially visible at the right edge or the photo. A second well is visible in front of the 2-story City Hall building which stands in the middle of Laurens Street near the intersection with Hayne.

Meanwhile, there was the specter of fires. With the reliance on fire for lighting, cooking, heating, and so many other daily tasks, accidents were bound to occur. Structure fires consumed houses, churches and businesses . The great fire of 1839 burned down the entire Laurens Street business district, save one store on the corner of Park Avenue and Laurens. Another major fire destroyed much of the downtown area in the 1880s. The first Platt’s Drug Store fire occurred in 1886.

City leaders did their best at the time, constructing giant 15,000 and 65,000 gallon cisterns in the middle of Laurens Street. A 30,000 gallon cistern was later added at the junction of York and Richland Avenue. These cisterns served only the immediate areas in which they were located, providing water for the steam and hand-pump fire engines of the time. Vulnerabilities to this system were droughts, freezing, and the limitations of hose length.

The aqua circles on Laurens Street in this May 1884 Sanborn Fire Insurance map indicate wells and cisterns. Click image for larger view.

The lack of adequate water supplies for fire suppression was causing fire insurance rates to balloon to the point where some merchants struggled to stay in business. Water! Then would come the inevitable question— but, from where?

The Water Question

Every year or two, the “water question” would arise in the town council meetings. In those meetings, the same complaints could be heard over and over again. 

• The town cisterns are in need of cleaning.
• The wells around town are silted, the water impure and simply abominable. “
• The old oaken bucket may be dear to some, but there is no poetry in one hung at the end of a 160-foot rope. 
• Do you ever wonder what becomes of the filth (trash and animal waste) that is scattered over the surface of our city?

 Adding insult to injury, certain scallywags sometimes delighted in cutting the ropes to the wells. Aiken was promoting itself as the preeminent healthful destination for invalids to recover from debilitating diseases. This could hardly coexist with a water supply vulnerable to typhoid fever, cholera, and other water-borne diseases.

Could the water from the old reliable Coker Spring and one or two other smaller springs beyond be collected in some kind of cistern or reservoir? Nope, that supply was inadequate. Could the water from Good Springs, five miles northwest of town be tapped? Nope, too far away. With no electricity for pumps at that time, this option was an impossibility. But, wait! Charleston had achieved great success in obtaining water by means of the artesian well– a well bored deep into the aquifer below, tapping into water that is under pressure, such that it rises to, or near to the surface. Could something like that work here in Aiken? Did that water even exist below our town? It promised to be an expensive venture, potentially resulting in a grand boondoggle with nothing to show for the effort but odd-tasting sulfur or mineral water, unsuitable for use.

Aiken Takes Action

With no guarantee of a successful outcome, the Town Council initiated the first step in the process, petitioning the SC General Assembly for permission to establish a city-wide waterworks system. In late December of 1891, the SC General Assembly passed an act authorizing the Aiken Council to construct a waterworks, pending passage of the act by the qualified voters of Aiken. That election was held in April 1892 at the fire engine house below town hall in the middle of Laurens Street. The final results– Yes- 149, No- 40, those described as “Scattering”- 13.

The Council sought the advice of various contractors. One by the name of Mr. Baum examined the city and advised that artesian water could be easily had at a very low cost. Skeptical city leaders were not sold, and instead, chose the services of Mr. Eugene F. Fuller of Orange, New Jersey. Council then worked to craft an ordinance, passed in August of 1892, that outlined the work to be done, going even so far as to specify the individual costs for customers to tap into this system. Mr. Fuller was charged with locating the water from some unspecified source — a well? a spring? a running stream? Some speculated that he might draw on Sand River where it reemerged at the rear of Mr. Cuthbert’s Hill in what would later become Hitchcock Woods.

Once he attained a water source, Fuller was to lay out and install the water mains throughout the city. He would then operate the entire system, collecting water rates from customers for a period of 30 years. Construction of the waterworks was mandated to start within sixty days after acceptance of the contract with Fuller, and to be completed within four months. 

The Fuller Fail

In September 1892, Mr. Fuller visited Aiken to solidify the contract and participate with other Aiken businessmen in establishing his Aiken Waterworks Company. He also ordered the standpipe– a massive 180,000 gallon, 16-foot diameter by 120-foot tower that would hold the water pumped from the yet-defined source. Gravity would pressure water from the standpipe to the upper stories of any house or building in town. In January 1893, the unassembled pieces of the standpipe were delivered to the freight depot at Park Avenue and Williamsburg Street. Two months later, the pieces were still lying in wait at the depot. With ground yet to be broken on the waterworks, and Mr Fuller vague on his plans to return to town, public concerns grew vocal.. Arrangements were made to haul the standpipe by mule and dump it the middle of Newberry Street.

The turn of events led citizens to re-visit the terms of the ordinance passed the prior summer. The source for the water had yet to be named, which left open the questions on water purity and adequate supply. Would this new source be as vulnerable to the whims of weather as cisterns? And was the City wise to put the town’s waterwork in the hands of private interests, whose motives for profit might override concerns of water quality? Opposition to the Fuller plan took root and was expressed through petitions signed by hundreds and brought before Council. By April 1893, with Mr. Fuller in default with his contract, the City began the process of cancelling his contract. Come July 1893, Mr. Fuller’s tools and machinery were sold off in a Sheriff’s sale. 

The Artesian Option

In early March 1893, even before Mr. Fuller had been banished from the project, a citizen water committee was formed. They petitioned for $2,500 from the city to test and explore the possibility of obtaining an artesian well. From the beginning, the artesian option was seen as an experimental venture, its outcome unknown.

That same month, the water committee re-contacted the contractor that had, a year earlier, given such a rosy estimate of the artesian water that coursed below the surface of Aiken — Mr. Baum of the Andrews & Baum firm of Atlanta, Georgia. Fortunately, Baum was familiar with the town, having visited previously. He formulated a plan and quickly provided a bid to bore a well that was very favorable to city leaders.

His partner, Perry Andrews, would perform the work using local laborers, supplying the equipment and well casing at no cost to the city. There would be no charge for the first 500 feet of depth if no water was reached. There was no doubt that it would be a very risky venture, but Council quickly jumped on this proposal and rewrote the waterworks ordinance.

The method chosen for sinking the well was a cable-tool drilling rig — a method developed in China 4,000 years prior — which necessitated hanging a large chisel from a rope tied to a teeter-totter-type device. A group of men would then jump on and off of the teeter-totter to move the chisel up and down to cut downward into the earth.

Andrews would, instead, use a steam-powered engine to work the teeter-totter– no jumping men would be needed. With the anticipated drilling depth to be over 500 feet, it was going to be a very slow process. 

On May 10, 1893, Mr. Baum was called to Aiken to iron out the final details to city leaders. He reassured that rushing tides of health-giving water were right beneath the town. On May 17, the contract was signed and sealed. The standpipe would be located at the highest point in the town limits– Edgefield Street and Laurens (between what is now the post office and the former public safety building). The well would be located at the intersection of  Laurens Street and Park Avenue.

Everything seemed set until a large group of citizens vehemently objected to the litter and smoke that would be generated by the well-drilling; the ungainliness. This would not be an ornament to the intersection of Aiken’s two principal thoroughfares. It was decided to, instead, locate an ornamental fountain at the intersection of Laurens and Park, and to site the well in the middle of Newberry Street at the intersection with Curve Street (the Alley).

The Experiment Begins

At the end of May, Perry Andrews arrived in town to begin the process. Workmen erected a 45-foot derrick over the boring site to assist in lifting the giant 1,000 lb. chisel in and out of the well. Winches and engines were put in place, and well-casing pipes were gathered. On June 7, 1893, the boring began, much to the amazement of the large crowds of townsfolk who looked on. Advocates of the artesian option were noticeably nervous. It was such a big gamble, and now, there was no turning back– the great experiment had begun.

The ‘Man About Town” section of the Aiken Journal and Review tracked the progress, reporting in 6/14/1893 the reactions Aiken citizens. “Daily conventions at the site have not by any means been made up wholly of street urchins, gamins, and idlers. Every citizen contrives to take a squint at the processes going on whenever a leisure moment is spared him. The most pronounced advocates make it a daily habit to briefly visit and keenly watch the progress of the boring. Even the ladies are sometimes seen to steal softly and airily in the afternoon after the workmen have quit and flutter animatedly about the scene for a while and then lightly to fly away.”

Further, the Man About Town stated, “All watched as the baler would draw up the results of the dig– rich red clay, sand, terra cotta, a tough stratum of marl, a 15-foot thick layer of kaolin, then coarse, loose sand…. Mr. Andrews was making his slow progress downward toward the coveted goal of reaching bedrock, beyond which would, hopefully, be flowing rivers of pure, healthful artesian water.” 

Aiken Gets Water

Summer brought a series of equipment failures and delays. In late June, the gearing on the winch that raised and lowered the giant chisel had to be replaced. In August, at 325 feet of depth, the chisel hit a seemingly endless layer of quicksand, filling the hole as quickly as it was bored. This required a weeks-long process of removing and replacing the well casing.

Finally, at the end of September, the chisel hit bedrock at 485 feet. Andrews forged ahead, the goal being to reach a point of strong pressure to send a sufficient flow of water to the surface, Near the end of October, a vein of water was reached at a depth of 545 feet. Drilling continued, and at 565 feet, another vein was struck. Continuing, yet another vein was struck. Water certainly did not rush to the surface of the ground as artesian wells are supposed to do, but the level did push up to about 170 feet below the surface. Mr. Andrews continued his drilling in hopes of increasing the supply already there.

In mid-December 1893, he finally pulled his chisel out for the last time. At a depth of 700 feet, he had attained an estimated flow of 200,000 gallons per day. Still no water geyser in evidence but, eh, close enough. “Water, water everywhere, and plenty of it to drink!” Proclaimed the Aiken Journal and Review.

Now What?

At the start of 1894, there were no pipes, pumps or hydrants, etc. to deliver the water throughout the town. Citizens were urged to stop drinking from the old wells and cisterns and to, instead, bring their buckets and barrels to the artesian well site on Newberry Street. Within a year, however, nearly five miles of water mains had been completed, mostly in the east/west Florence to Fairfield Street and north/south Edgefield to Colleton Street area. It would be another 70 years before the poor sections of town would receive service.

By early 1896, there were 200 residential and business customers attached to the system, using a collective 40,000 gallons per day. Many were installing newly-built rooms onto their houses, replacing the water pitcher and bowl from the bedroom dresser with a sink and a bathtub into this new room, which they called a “bathroom.” Some households also replaced the bedpan and the outhouse with one of the new-fangled flush toilets.

Kitchen were also outfitted with sinks, making trips to the hand-pump and the well obsolete. With the newly invented devices of lawn mower and sprinkler, growing a lush rye grass lawn was now possible. Water was also available for watering gardens, horses and livestock. For awhile, the issues of water supply seemed a thing of the past.

Within the first few years, however, water-wasting became an issue, as household and business usage alarmingly exceeded original usage estimates. Meters would be needed to monitor usage. Another unanticipated cost was the specialized labor necessary to operating the system’s steam engines, pumps and other mechanics. Stirred into this were ongoing equipment breakdowns, operator mishaps, and system malfunctions. All of this equated to rising costs, which meant higher fees and taxes.

While Aiken’s artesian well project may not have been a boondoggle, it ultimately proved to be a costly, labor-intensive way of getting water. Within 15 years, a new system would be installed at Shiloh Springs.

First, however, was the matter of those 40,000 gallons of artesian well water being used every day. What to do with all of that waste water being created? Aiken now needed a sewage system!

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1. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “Aiken Water works.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1870 – 1879. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e1-af16-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Feature photo: Child taking a drink of water at Coker Spring in Aiken.
Retrograph Co., Germany, 1904.
(Note the location was erroneously cited as “Cocoa Springs” on the postcard).