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71-year-old water tank to come down
The courthouse water tank was a part of Grove Hill's original water system when it was erected back in 1935. Now, over 71 years later, the tank has outlived its usefulness. The courthouse tank holds 75,000 gallons and once served the entire town. The erection of a new 300,000-gallon water tank near Grove Hill Elementary School rendered the old tank obsolete. Now there are three new tanks with a combined quantity of 1,050,000 gallons providing water for the county seat. Times were tough back in the Great Depression years of the 1930s. People had little money and local governments, the town and county, were similarly hard pressed. Indeed, some county funds, like many individuals', were lost when the Bank of Grove Hill crashed as did many others at the onslaught of the Depression.
But President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs helped to pull the nation out of the Depression. Numerous government programs were created to help communities and to spark the economy. One of those, the Public Works Administration, would help fund Grove Hill's first water system as well as sidewalks, buildings and more here and elsewhere in the county and nation. Grove Hillians up until that time each had to have their own water wells, or had to share with neighbors. Some, on the outskirts of town, probably carried their water from nearby springs. The idea of a central water system that would provide water at the twist of a faucet was revolutionary; about as much so as the electricity that the town had received only a few years earlier. PWA provided $28,405 loan A December 1933 issue of The Democrat shows that Grove Hill had applied for $28,405 in waterworks loans from the Public Works Administration. The application had been approved on the state level but still had to receive an OK in Washington, D.C. It would still be over a year before actual work started. The Democrat of Feb. 7, 1935 noted that the Gray Artesian Well Company of Pensacola, Fla. had the contract for drilling a new town well near the courthouse. As a note of explanation, the old courthouse, while close, was not as close to the tank and well as the current one is. When the 1955 courthouse was built it was built in the very shadow of the water tank. The town had acquired the property from the county and the contract called for the well to be 125 feet or deeper as needed and to have a water flow of not less than 100 gallons per minute. "This valuable and much-needed improvement is being financed by a grant of 30 per cent of the cost from the Federal Government, the balance of the money coming from the sale of waterworks revenue bonds of the Town of Grove Hill to the Public Works Administration," the newspaper stated. The full price of the project was not listed. It included the new water well, a water tank and water lines to serve what is today the downtown area of Grove Hill. The well was drilled to a depth of 148 feet on a 50-foot water bed. The initial test in March 1935 produced a flow of 127 gallons per minute, 27 more gallons than the contract required. Ground was broken for the "water works tower" in June and The Democrat said water mains would be installed and be ready by the time the foundation was ready for the tower. "A large part of the pipe and frame work for the water tank tower arrived Monday night. All of the concrete foundations for the water tank and pump house have been poured with the building of the pump house and erection of the tower scheduled to start within the next few days," the July 4 edition relayed. The tank was up by Aug. 1 but the brick pump house at its base remained to be constructed. Now, the town was seeking a loan for a sewer system, The Democrat stated. 'Prettiest to be found anywhere' "Engineers state that the tank is one of the prettiest to be found anywhere in the state," the Aug. 29 issue stated. It may be hard today to think of water tanks as being "pretty" but you must remember that they were new and novel in rural Alabama in the 1930s and provided an amazing service- running water without having to pump a handle, turn a windlass or lug a bucket up a hill from a spring! The new water plant was to begin providing water on Sept. 1, The Democrat stated. "The new tank was filled for the first time last week, the water being let stand for a new days in order to test all joints and connections." Another well was drilled not far away to replace the 1935 well several years ago but the old pump house and well site is still in use, providing a clear well for the addition of chlorine to the water system.
Water also continues to flow through some of the original 1935 water lines.
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