Ross County OhArchives Photo Place.....South Salem Village Pump & Horse Trough. April 2, 2009
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ralph Cokonougher rcokon@hotmail.com April 11, 2009, 2:04 pm

Source:             Photo Taken By Ralph Cokonougher With A Fujifilm Finepix F50fd Digital Camera.
Photo can be seen at:
http://www.usgwarchives.net/oh/ross/photos/southsal4486nph.jpg
Image file size: 288.0 Kb

     This photo shows the old water well and pump for the village of South 
Salem, Ohio, in Buckskin Township of Ross County, Ohio.  The old horse 
watering trough beside the pump shows just how old the well is.  The village 
pump is located on the northwest corner of Stewart St. and Broadway St. at 
latitude 39.336173 and longitude -83.30594.


Additional Comments:
     Centrally located wells like this were crucial to the existence of small 
towns in the 19th and early 20th centuries since many people were unable to 
dig wells deep enough to provide them with clear and clean water. Even people 
who lived in the countryside outside of the village boundaries used the South 
Salem village well upon occasion.  I remember my own father and mother having 
to frequently stop at the village pump and fill up all of the water containers 
that we could muster whenever our well went dry in late summer.  Sometimes my 
father even stopped to get water at the village pump when our well wasn't dry, 
just because he liked the taste of it better than that we had at whatever 
house we may have been renting at the time. 
     The South Salem village pump was discontinued sometime in the early 
1980's when the health department declared it no longer safe to use for 
drinking water.  They declared it unsafe not because the water had proven 
unsafe, but rather bacause the handdug well was old and antiquated, and 
because more modern and safer methods of obtaining safe drinking water were 
then available.  
     I have never found any record or heard of anyone ever geting sick from 
drinking water from the South Salem village pump, and indeed, many people 
continued to use the water even afer it was officially declared "unsafe".  
Eventually though, the town fathers removed the inner workings in the pump so 
that it could no longer be used.  The well, the outer body of the pump, and 
the old horse trough that the well once fed now stand out along Stewart Street 
as nostalgic memorials to the time when one could get a cool drink of sweet 
well water instead of the clorinated chemical water that the people of South 
Salem now have to drink.

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/oh/ross/photos/southsal4486nph.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ohfiles/

File size: 2.9 Kb