This is a follow up, part 2, of a previous article on The Williams Creek Basin Website regarding a railroad pump house at Rush KY. The previous article is located at this link:
Pumphouse, Carpentry Shop, And Railroad Scale At Rush KY
There is a dug pit water reservoir on a hillside knob, to the right, just as you enter Blackleg Hollow in Rush KY. This is one of the few industrial features that remain in the Williams Creek Basin from the coal boom from about 1865 to the 1930’s. This water pit was a necessity for the steam rail locomotives serving the area’s coal mining industries of the early 1900’s. This reservoir was coupled to pumps and other plumbing whatnot, in a pumphouse shown in the previous WCB article detailed above.
Here is an image of the entire dug pit. Click on the image for a larger view.
This pit provided an elevated reservoir to allow a constant pressure water source to quickly fill steam locomotives at a fill spout located on the railroad just below. This pit would have provided the same function as the constant pressure water tower so common for municipal waterworks.
I visited this pit in 2018 and examined the location and construction methodologies. The pit’s bottom and some parts of the angled sides are still lined with local flat, brown sandstone. The sandstone on most of the angled sides has collapsed or possibly the stones have been scavenged. I did not see any evidence of mortar, but the mortar might have just deteriorated from weathering over the last 100 years. The pit may have also been lined with the very common, high quality, gray clay extracted from local mines, before the flat sandrocks were positioned. This clay lining would have mitigated loss of most, but not all, of the contained water. There was a high quality gray clay seam just under the coal seam on the nearby coal mines, so it would have been plentiful and readily available. If clay was used, over the last century it would have integrated and disappeared into the weather beaten surrounding dirt as would decomposed mortar.
A century of tree root growth in and beside the pit has dislodged and moved many of the sandstones lining the pit. Below is an image of the pit sides. Click on the image for a larger view.
Since my visit in 2018 I have discovered this pit sits just inside private property.
I had the good fortune of reviewing and scanning the #3 Surveying / Engineering field notebook of “V. O. Weathers – O. H. Steel Plant (Open Hearth) of Ashland Iron and Mining – Ashland KY”. This field notebook was recently and serendipitously discovered in the records at the former ARMCO steel offices in Ashland KY. This field notebook details surveying and engineering notes, calculations, and sketches for accomplished, underway, and possibly upcoming projects or upgrades for 1920. These projects were for the various regional facilities of Ashland Iron and Mining Company (AI&M) and its direct subsidiary, The Ashland Coal and Iron Railway (AC&I). Mr Weathers had detailed notes on this exact pit reservoir at Rush.
In the 1917 Ashland City Directory V. O. Weathers is listed as a surveyor living at 713 13th Street. The 1956 Ashland City Directory lists Vernon O Weathers, Engineer, working for ARMCO, and living at 816 Rogers Court. Note that ARMCO bought Ashland Iron and Mining at the end of 1921. So, Mr Weathers evidently had a long career at these associated Ashland steel production facilities.
Pages 88 to 101 of this notebook provides detailed sketches, calculations, physical descriptions, dimensions, locations, and other data for this dug pit reservoir at Blackleg in Rush. These notes were made on 12 Oct and 13 Oct 1920.
Here is page 94 and 95 showing the basic layout and dimensions of this reservoir. Click on the image for a larger view.
In addition to the water provided by the dug pit, there was an additional volume of water provided by an above ground, built up, pool, with an expected water depth of “5.48” feet, as shown in the notebook. I found no evidence of this above ground pool on my visit. The construction materials for this pool are not noted in the field notebook.
Below are specifications derived from these sketches, my field visit notes, and some simple engineering calculations. Note these are all reasonable approximations.
80 X 40 x 5.5 feet (with angled corners) – Size of above ground pool
119,200 gallons – Volume provided by above ground pool
63 X 29 feet – Top surface of dug pit (at bottom of above ground pool)
50 X 16 feet – Bottom surface of angled dug pit
10 feet – Depth of dug pit
96,150 gallons – Volume provided by dug pit
215,350 gallons – Total volume of reservoir (above ground pool and pit)
600 feet – Length of pipe down hill from reservoir to pumphouse
170 feet – Elevation of reservoir above railroad
60 psi – Pressure of water at railroad level
The specified dimensions of the pit in the field note drawings were very consistent with my own recent site measurements.
The straight path of the 600 foot pipe going down the hill to the pumphouse area can still be discerned. It is about 2 feet wide and slightly below the adjoining hillside surface. This pipe would have very likely been in the 6 inch diameter range. A 6 inch diameter is noted at the pit discharge in the drawing. It mostly follows closely to the edge of where the western and northern faces of this ridge meet on this hillside. Local Rush lore indicates the 600 feet of iron pipe used to connect this reservoir to the pumphouse below was scavenged off the hillside, many decades ago, by local industrious iron scrappers.
As mentioned in the field notes, this reservoir was fed by water provided by wells and pumped uphill to this reservoir. Since wells can only provide a reasonable volume of water in a short period, routine and repeated pumping from these wells to the reservoir would fill the reservoir over time. The reservoir’s large, time accumulated, volume and elevated location would provide the needed water at pressure to quickly fill the water-hungry steam locomotives in their visits on the railroad below.
The rail steam engines are gone, the pump house to feed the pit reservoir is gone, the 600 feet of iron pipe going down the hill is gone, the main C&O / AC&I rail line from Coalton west is gone, the many rail spurs to local individual coal mines are gone, the coal tipples are gone, the many mine entrances have collapsed or decimated by later strip mining, but the water pit reservoir at Blackleg endures.
A big thanks to Orville Smith for providing the opportunity to review and scan the #3 Field Notebook of V O Weathers. Also, a big thanks to Harold Bates who grew up at the mouth of Blackleg Hollow very near this pit. Harold made me aware of this pit’s existence over 10 years ago.
Enjoy! Lon
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