WOBURN - The outside of the red-bricked building at the south end of Horn Pond near the Winchester line has looked the same for over a century.

Inside, the steam-operated machinery also looks the same: a throwback to a time of the industrial revolution. One can close one's eyes inside the building and hear the water being drawn from Horn Pond, heated to a boiling point with steam, and then released with steam powering the giant fly-wheels and machinery.

Now, these days, individuals interested in Woburn history are starting to take another look at this slice of history that hasn't been touched since it was closed in the early 1950s. An electric pump replaced the functions once provided by the monstrous, two-story set of wheels.

The coal bins are empty and the first-floor burner is empty. Still, one can almost hear the churn of the machinery as the door is unlocked. The building in front of the new water works dedicated in May, 2002, is locked all the time and has been for decades. Written logs, paperwork, old posters and the like -some dating back to 1872 still sit idly in the drawer.

A quick check of the month it opened reveled in a main log:

Hours run: 2.77

Daily: 9.2242 million

Gallons per pound of coal: 287.9

And, signage on the machinery still reads:

"High Duty Pumping Engine Built By:

Platt Iron Works

Dayton, Ohio"

Nowadays, the building sits inside some tight security protecting the new water works and water treatment plant. The easterly end of the building houses the old water works, while the central section houses three fire trucks used by the Fire Department Auxiliary (Civil Defense), the center-west garage is used by the Current DPW/Water Department and the westerly side still has a working electric water pump (the C2. Well).

"It's all pretty much as people have left it," notes Scott Johnson, a Water Dept. employee, talking about the old water works. It takes keys to get on the property at the south end of Horn Pond and it takes more keys to get to the old Water Works building with few visitors in the course of a year.

The memories and stories come from everywhere, as one talks to old-time Water Dept. employees, who provided water to people back in the steam engine days. The chimney is gone, they point out, however, the pipe feeding the steam engine is still there and rises and falls with Horn Pond (it's been high in recent years) and is very visible around the old pump. Stories abound from those about just three individuals in the first half of the 20th century who virtually lived there to insure Woburn had good, safe water, to stories bout using row boats on the nearby Horn Pond Reservoir to dump barrels of chlorine directly into the water at key junctures when needed.

Billy Nieman

One person who had a front-row seat for the last quarter century is Billy Nieman, who is recently retired from the Water Works, but has one foot in the "old" and another in the "new". "There were only four of us back in 1968," reflects Nieman, who served the city from April 1988 to December 31, 2002.

The people at the water works, he points out, kept good ledgers and a great paper trail to aid those at the time and the future. The steam, he points out, went out in 1931 and the all-electric age was welcomed aboard, i.e. pumps at each pump house around the south end of Horn Pond and so forth.

"The old system you see there is not all the original from 1908-1910," he recollects, noting repairs had to be made here and there before it was retired. Still, the unit there is a slice of history. "There are still many parts of the original original."

Nieman, for example, worked for eight city engineers, dating back to "Georgie Olsen", who was a fixture himself back in the 1950s and 1960s. And, there were events along the way like a mid-century allowing the Merrimack Chemical Co. in North Woburn to draw 1 million gallons a day from the city which strained the system.

Nieman also noted that there is one thing walkers along perimeter of Horn Pond probably also noticed. "Back when I went on, the pond could get very low and take days to recover, but now with the all the development and catch basins, it recovers in a day!"

Keeping the "Pond" level high has always been a concern to insure the water table below stays viable as a producing aquifer.

The "pumping station" has been a landmark and is still used e.g. the Civil Defense are there on Monday nights and for some storage.

Back in 1908

Commissioner William H. Conway in presenting his first annual report in 1908 took some time to review the history of the Woburn water system, its storage area, its area of collecting water and its administration.

The water works were constructed in 1873-74, including a pumping station, a Worthington pump, a reservoir and a distributing system of cement-lined pipe.

The reservoir atop Horn Pond Mountain was merely excavated, not lined or covered. In 1882 a Blake pump, was added and in 1896 two 125 H. P. boilers were installed. After 1889, the tastes resulting at certain seasons from the exposure of the ground water in an uncovered reservoir have been referred to in many of the annual reports; and since 1881 the number of breaks occurring in the cement-lined mains had formed an important feature in each yearly statement.

Despite this, Conway reported, a new fourteen-inch, cement-lined main was laid in 1889. A report of 1896 described the advisability of purchasing a new pump that became a "matter of annual discussion."

Woburn was growing and according to Conway's report, the rapidly increasing consumption and the annual shortage in the dry season of each year made it plain in 1903 that an additional supply was necessary, "and in this year, Mr. Coffin, a well-known hydraulic engineer, recommended the development of an auxiliary supply near Sucker Brook."

In various reports of the State Board of Health, it was pointed out, the fact had been proclaimed that despite the gradual improvement of Horn Pond as a result of removing the contaminating drainage, "the water supply drawn from the gallery was depreciating."

All of these disabilities of the system — the depreciated pumping plant, the inadequate supply and the breaking and leaking pipe system—"have from year to year grown more pronounced, but it was not until 1907 that the work of rejuvenation was commenced."

In 1907. a Mr. Frank A. Barbour was retained as engineer to supervise improvements. The work involved investigation for an additional supply, the enlargement of the pumping station, the installation of a new pump, the construction of a larger and deeper well at the station, and tests of the pipe system for leakage.

By springtime

In April, 1907. It was voted by the city to purchase a new pump, and in August of that year a contract for a vertical, fly-wheel pump of 5,000,000 gallons daily capacity was awarded to the Platt Iron Works Company for the sum of $28,475.00. At the time, the city fathers felt, the guaranteed efficiency of this engine is such that "the cost of fuel should be reduced to one-half that necessary with the old apparatus and a yearly saving in cost of coal of at least 83,000 effected."

In the autumn of 1907, a contract for the enlargement of the pumping station was let to Bellamy & Company, which, except for such work as cannot be done until the installation of the pumping plant is completed, was finished in April, 1908, a city water report indicated.

The contract for the pump, note city records, required that it should be ready for operation February 15, 1908. Owing to circumstances for which the city is not responsible, the apparatus was not delivered until June and not erected until on or about October 1, 1908. Since the latter date the engine has been intermittently operated by the representatives of the pump company, "but it has not yet been subjected to the duty trial upon which its final acceptance and the amount to be paid by the city is to be determined."

In order to supply water at the rate necessary for this new and larger pump, a new well was required and a contract for a well twenty feet in diameter and ten feet deeper than the old gallery adjacent to the present: pumping station was let to Ellis & Buswell and completed in the- autumn of the past year. The suction connection of the new pump with the well and the new force main connection with the distribution system were also laid during the year.

A check of the city report in 1908 reveals in August, 1907, it became necessary to use Horn Pond water for several weeks. Further, the examinations of the State Board of Health indicated a gradual depreciation in the quality of the water due to the excessive draft of pond water "through an area of ground too small to effect satisfactory purification." An investigation for an additional supply from wells near Sucker Brook was therefore made and a contract for the driving of these wells will soon be let, the report said.

A pipe-line fourteen inches in diameter from these wells would be laid along the shore of Horn Pond to the new intake well at the pumping station. The development of this auxiliary supply was intended to draw part of the water required daily from the ground adjacent to the present station and a part from the new wells "and in this way enlarging the area through which the water is drafted, and so in addition to obtaining a rate of inflow equal to the demands of the new pump, improving the quality of the water."

So be it...

During the season of 1908, an investigation of leakage from the cement-lined mains was made, under the direction of Mr. Barbour "by shutting off districts" of the distribution system and measuring the water used in these isolated districts between the hours of twelve midnight and 4 a. m. Then, it was found the waste of water from the mains is "a large percentage of the total amount pumped daily, and further, that it is not uniformly distributed but rather confined to certain portions of the system." "In nineteen miles of the fifty-eight miles of pipe-lines , ninety per cent of the night use of water was located—a result of great value as it indicates the possibility of adapting the work of replacing the mains to the conditions as found and thus postponing the great expenditure necessary to any general replacement of the system."

The necessity of undertaking the development of an auxiliary supply is due to the waste of water through leakage from mains and cast iron pipe, and by rendering the careless use of water expensive to the owners of the premises through the placing of meters on all services.

However in a 2008-like debate of today, the issue of meters or no meters, the town fathers came to the conclusion that "selling water by meter is the only logical way but whether meters should be adopted with the present cement-lined mains wasting double the amount which can be saved by metering is, perhaps debatable."

In the understatement of the century, Conway went on to say: "Undoubtedly in the future, if Woburn grows, every means will have to be adopted to keep the consumption within the capacity of the present source of supply." To this end, he surmised, "it is obvious that an immediate start should be made on some comprehensive scale to replace the cement pipe which the investigation of last year showed to be most defective. I

Up until this point in time, note city records, for thirty-five years the water system has furnished water "of acceptable quality and the income has not only maintained the works and paid off the bonded indebtedness originally incurred, but has also contributed largely to the support of other departments."

The rationale on it face, figured Conway, is a most satisfactory showing, "but present conditions indicate that the factor of depreciation has not been sufficiently taken into account."

He pointed out, too, it was obvious that to reduce leakage, lessen the cost of repairing breaks and better the insurance provided by the system, a considerable sum of money "must he spent yearly in the replacement of depreciated mains."

In 1908, for example, there were seventy-one breaks in the distribution system, and the number is rapidly increasing from year to year. It was estimated at the time that to replace the cement-lined mains would cost not less than $350,000.00, "and yet this will probably have to be done within the' next ten years."

The investigation of leakage, however, showed practically all present leakage to be confined to about thirty-five percent of the length of pipe. It would seem as if a start should be made at once in the work of replacing this defective portion of the system.

In 1908, $27,676.63 was paid by the water department to other departments. To Commissioner Conway, ,it seemed as if the time has come for this surplus to be used in the necessary improvements of the water system. The present method of making the water consumers bear the burden of other public works is not equitable, he reasoned. Conway concluded: "Because one man uses more water than his neighbor is no proof that he derives any more benefit from the streets, or from the fire or police departments. If such surplus of income was employed to rebuild the distribution system, this would be a logical return to the consumers for their money. I therefore recommend that for the next five years the surplus income of the department be employed in the replacement of defective street mains."