The New Row Water Pump

“New Row” was a row of 8 or 9 coal mining company houses in Rush, KY all facing SR 854. This group of houses all shared the exact same water source, one well with a hand pump. This pump supplied all the water for drinking, laundry, bathing, and cleaning. All the water for families in 8 or 9 houses.

Here is a keen image of that pump. The image is from about 1957. In the image are Charlotte and Jennifer Davis. Charlotte is about 11 and Jennifer is about 3. Charlotte and Jennifer’s parents, Curtis (1903 – 1981) and Merle Sexton Davis (1912 – 1981), owned and lived in one of the New Row houses and the pump was located directly beside their house, one house down from the Needmore Branch Road (now called Needmore Road).  You can see SR 854 in the image background.  Click on the image for a larger version.

My family, the Colemans, moved into the same house vacated by the Davis family a very short time later and used this pump. I started 1st grade here in the fall of 1957. So, this pump was very important to my family as it was to all the other families on New Row.

Only three of the original New Row houses remain. The one that the Davis and Coleman family lived in, and two others. The pump’s location is marked with a red teardrop icon in the Google Maps link below. The house with the medium brown roof beside the pump and the two just south on the same side of SR 854 (one has a red roof, one has a black roof), are the three remaining New Row Houses.

Google Map Link to Pump and New Row

Thanks to the Davis family for providing this nice image.

Research for a more comprehensive article on the New Row Houses is ongoing along with an article regarding another row of coal mining company houses in Rush, Greasy Row.

This pump has also been added to the “Williams Creek Basin Interactive Map”.  140 other features  in the Williams Creek Basin are marked with icons on this map. These icons can be clicked on and information about that particular location can be reviewed.  Many of these features have associated photographs.  For info and access to the “Williams Creek Basin Interactive Map” just click on the link below:

The Williams Creek Basin Interactive Map

Next Article: Upper and Lower Rush Schoolhouses, a Bit of a Mystery

Previous article: The Many Graveyards of Straight Creek