All over the back roads of Arkansas there were the "water stops" Most looked like this one. They were just springs that the locals had cleaned out a bit, and made a easy place to fill a bucket using a old piece of pipe or ???. I remember as late as the early 70s all the old "water stops" still had there names that they had been given years before, still being in use. The one I remember the most was "hard candy rock" It was a spring from under a big bolder (about the size of a VW bug). The locals had painted it red, so travelers would notice it. All the local kids called it "hard candy rock" because it looked like a big piece of "cinnamon hard candy" It is still there today, beside the highway 16 west out of Clinton Ark.. It is still being painted red from time to time by the locals. But most of the people today do not have a clue why. It is also the target of the new "graffite" generation.
Whose spring this is I think I know.
His house is up the canyon though.
He will not see me stopping here the hottest season of the year
To cool my Ford before I go.
You reach an age when everything reminds you of something else.
Note the woman is getting the water. The man seems to be climbing up the hill. I wonder why?
Norm
Norman, the man has other issues with water to tend to.
Steve, I love your trains of thought!
The man could be picking berries.
Happy motoring,
Warren
Steve, that poem is brilliant. From where did it come?
I think the man is filling the water jugs and the woman is packing them in the box to take with them.
We used to go to several springs around our home in Pennsylvania when I was growing up and fill water bottles. The government decided that fresh spring water wasn't good for you and closed a lot of them down along the main roads. We still got water from some springs on old back roads.
i would say, hes mad cause he ran out of rubbers, and hes leaving
How refreshing to read a "clean" limerick that can be repeated in mixed company!
It's a parody.
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost.
Donnie -- There are several of those springs around here as well. One is "Kettle Spring." Many moons ago someone placed a large cast-iron kettle to catch the spring water coming out of the hillside. Folks could just dip their water jugs into the kettle of water, instead of having to wait for the trickle of water to fill them.
... and let me guess, recently, some meth heads stole the kettle to scrap it for drug money.
There is a well known spring here in Minnesota in Eden Prairie on Cty 4 south of Hwy 5. I believe it is still in use.
Looks like a '14 with no speedometer.
Ken in Texas
Lady: "Oh no you don't, not without a rubber".
Man: "Forget that, I'm outta here".
The license plate is a 1915 Penna porcelain.
The woman appears to be washing her hands in the wooden trough. The Ball-Band sign is a tin advertising sign nailed to the trough and appears to be C.W. Kurtz & Co. in Warrensville. There is a company by the same name in that town which is in central PA.
The Ball-Band Rubber Co. was the largest producer of rubber floor mats for the automobile by the early 1930's. Oh the power of the internet...
It's almost seems like they don't know they are being photographed. Just looks like a real moment in time. Nice picture as usual Jay!
Mike
Ah, my poetic ignorance has been discovered. I thought it was a Limerick.
The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
I still liked it (even though it was a parody).
Eric S,
And I like the one you posted! I may need to copy it as I also very much agree with it.
Thank you to all!
Also, around Califunny, most of those road-side fountains have disappeared in the past few years. Seems there is a recent law they may not conform to?
Drive carefully, and enjoy, W2
i get all my drinking water from a spring like that, but now modernized with parking etc. have no well, 2000 gal cistern full of rain water for shower and toilet. life should be simple
Justin,
"Oh the power of the internet..."
About 2,000 years ago the Roman philosopher Seneca observed that if a man has a library so vast that it would take most of his life to just read the titles, what's the point?
Times have changed a little....
Roadside springs like that were once a common sight in many places. There was a good one by the road over La Veta Pass in Colorado. The busiest was probably the one on the old Grapevine grade south of Bakersfield. On a summer day lots of cars climbing out of the steaming Central Valley would stop there to cool off.
There is still one near the northern base of I-5 going over the grapevine to LA
On the west side of MacDonald Pass west of Helena, Montana there is a water tap coming out of a stone plinth that was put there many years ago. When they rebuilt the road over the top many people were concerned that they would take the water tap out. The state highway dept. just moved it back and worked on the spring a little to get a little better flow. Seldom do I go by there that someone is not filling water jugs to take home or that someone has stopped to have a drink of the best water anywhere around. Pipestone pass south east of Butte has several of them, put there years ago when cars needed water on a long grade.
Grandpa and Grandma Ludwig homesteaded in 1910 in eastern Montana along a draw that had a good spring. He built a springbox, dug back into the side of the draw. The spring had some of the best water in eastern Montana and people came from miles around to get water there for drinking, cooking and washing white clothes. Her rule was that you had to fill your container by using her bucket -- you could not dip your bucket or cream can into her spring box. Although they have been gone for years the spring and spring box are still there and there are always tracks from some one in a car or pickup that parked on the bank and walked down the path to the spring to fill a jug or just get a drink of the ice cold water that still flows. The deer still drink there & there are at times the track of a shod horse -- for this is still big ranch country -- when someone stopped to get a cool drink while riding for cattle.
Down over the bank behind the house. You can have a cool drink.
It's interesting how few springs are now tapped for use. When I was younger, my paternal grandfather and several folks we knew lived in the hills above Los Gatos, CA. There was certainly no public water system and I don't think there was a well to be seen. All of them boxed in a spring uphill from the house, piped the water from the spring collection box to a tank (usually about a 1,000 gallon redwood tank) still uphill from the house, then piped it to the house. In well thought out systems having the correct difference in elevation between the tank and the house, the water pressure was just like down town, but no energy at all was used to maintain it. Gravity worked just fine.
You had to be conservative in water use for two reasons, the limited supply and the limited capacity of the crude septic system. The water was just spring water, no filters, no chlorination, no nothing. In some locations it stained stuff orange due to the high mineral (iron) content.
Maybe there are still a lot of these systems around and I've just lost touch.
"Hard Candy Rock" Could this be a source for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqowmHgxVJQ
Wayne Sheldon:
There used to be a spring just like your picture about a mile out of Grass Valley on the Marysville Highway. There used to be people there all the time getting water. There sued to also be one on Highway 20 between Nevada city and 1-80.
the spring i use is Miller spring, built by the
miller family in 18 sumthin. supposidly just a sand point driven horizontally into the side of a hill. the area is hilly and near, but above the minnesota river. it is tested weekly, and at times you will have to wait your turn for half an hour. people show up with a whole van full of jugs to fill. my property, also in the river valley, and has springs too, but the water smells, farm pollution? dont know, never had it tested, but i have always wanted to drive in a sand point to see what would happen.its on the list, but quite a ways down
Just because the water smells bad does not necessarily mean it's contaminated. In the east foothills above San Jose, CA is a park called Alum Rock Park. There is a natural mineral spring there that years ago folks would go to and fill bottles with the water. (Maybe they still do.) They believed it was very good for you, so they'd drink it in spite of the horrible smell.
I don't think it hurt them, but I doubt it did them much good either. I tried it once as a kid. NEVER again.
Henry, I drank from that spring too, about sixty years ago. As far as I can tell it hasn't done me any damage yet.
Dave, It's Bitney springs, here's the link.
http://www.findaspring.com/locations/north-america/usa/bitney-springs-nevada-ca/
All that natural spring water stuff will just give you cancer. Today we have Sunny D or Tang. Obviously superior hydration sources and made with real asbestos too !
Henry Petrino gave me the opening to expand on the springs in the mountains near Los Gatos, Ca. His grandfather was my neighbor and I suspect that Henry sampled the water from my spring. Pictured is the spring box, 10,000 gallons, fed by the springs and served the home and gardens. The box was built in 1928, but the spring was used for 50+ years before. By the way, the property is located on Soda Springs Road.
And more on Henry's message..the water fountains at Alum Rock Park served soda and sulphur water. A childhood favorite.
RE.THE FIRST PICTURE--- Could it be that his name Jack & her name Jill ?.
John,
You probably know this, but just a little down the road from your place is the location of the original soda spring for which the road was named. There was a building there that was pretty much on it's way back to dust years ago. Probably mostly gone by now.
I'm told (it was before my time) folks would go there and, like Alum Rock, bottle up the natural soda water to drink thinking it was a boon to their health. Of course, I don't think any of them are still around now.