Picture time, anybody know what this is?

OliverGuy · Mar 7, 2013

This is in the "basement" of a old farm house on a little farm of mine. I didn't know what it was until I was told. The inside is dished down (where the boxes are), stub up pipe inside on one end and then there was pipe coming in through the wall on the other. Pipe ran up behind the house to the hill. I'm sure many know now...

John B. · Mar 7, 2013

I would think the pipes were to pump water thru the tub to keep things cold... Am I right?

r aiken · Mar 7, 2013

A spring fead milk cooler

FLOLDFORD · Mar 7, 2013

Heard them called a spring house. Used to stay in a cabin in North Carolina that had one they were still using. Water stayed around 50 degrees year round. Used ceramic crocks to keep the food in. Poor mans refrigerator. We always put our adult beverages in it

Anonymous-0 · Mar 7, 2013

Adirondack case guy · Mar 7, 2013

We call them "Spring Boxes" around here. Many were located near the Dairy barns and used to keep the milk cool in the cans. Newer ones were made of galvinized steel and had an insulated cover. There are also many of them around here. along the rural roads, and people still carry water from them, on a reguular basis.
Loren, the Acg.

Mike (WA) · Mar 7, 2013

I imagine this was used to keep food and such cool, not milk cans- would be too much trouble to carry cans up to the house and into the basement, and then out again. Usually the ones for the milk cans were in the milkhouse- put the cans in after milking, leave them until a few minutes before the hauler comes, then carry them out to the stand. Or extend the road out to the milkhouse, and the hauler goes in and gets them directly out of the trough. We shipped in cans for the first couple years my dad milked- shipped to Darigold, I was 3 and called the hauler the "daddy-goat man". Folks got a kick out of it, because the sour old guy kind of had the personality of a "daddy goat".

Friends bought a property with an old milkhouse with spring trough in it- roof was shot, but they were going to rebuild it- but this past winter, the whole thing collapsed, and they just covered it over. Would have been nice if they had been able to save it, but, things happen.

rrlund · Mar 7, 2013

Would have been called a spring house if it was in a seperate building. In the cellar? Spring cellar?

gab · Mar 7, 2013

There's a spring house on the edge of the house yard here. One side of the roof had about a 2 foot hole in it when we bought the place and I was going to tear it down until I thought about the cost to have the cement dug out. I reroofed it and painted it and there it sets. It's about a 8x12 building with nice cement work, has a cement tank on each side, has cement steps with about an 8 inch ramp on each side to push the can cart in and out. Looks like work though, the barn is probably 200 feet away.

Ken Macfarlane · Mar 7, 2013

Little story about a spring in our neighbourhood. Mildred Hood's
place was still spring fed up till she died in the 90's. Bob and
Bert were the farmers in this area that looked after all the old
ladies about their mothers age.

Mildred phoned up Bob complaining of low water pressure and a
funny taste in her spring so he grabbed a bottle of bleach and
his potato hoe to pull the inevitable leaves out of the spring box.
Got there and found a dead bloated raccoon in the spring.
Fished it out and dumped the jug of bleach in.

Dropping in to Mildred's house he stopped in to let her know.
She say oh dear! Then poured him a cup of tea out of that
mornings pot lol.

OliverGuy · Mar 7, 2013

You guys are right. I bet the spring was 200 ft away. I take a
drink out of it by the spring when farming there. Put my cokes
in the cold spring water too

SweetFeet · Mar 7, 2013

We call it a cistern. Our old home (built in 1918) has one in the basement. I was told by an old-timer, that they used to collect the rain water off the roof for doing laundry and such.

John_PA · Mar 7, 2013

I chuckled when I read this whole thread.

I was probably 13 years old before I drank public water. I thought it tasted so bad I couldn't understand how people drink it. I still have a hard time stomaching the taste. Never had well water either. I just thought it was normal that the water got a little cloudy when there was a hard rain storm.

1959 was the year that they stopped allowing milk cans and you had to have a refrigerated bulk tank. In our dairy assoc there were over 10,000 dairy farms in 1958. In 1959 that number dropped down to 1500. Just about every farm around here has at least one spring house. I guess it's a matter of topography and geology, too. We have deep valleys and nice limestone shelves in the ground. The modern developed springs around here are concrete septic tanks buried in the ground and covered. That keeps all the creepy crawlies out of the water for the most part.

Picture time, anybody know what this is?

OliverGuy

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John B.

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r aiken

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FLOLDFORD

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Anonymous-0

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Adirondack case guy

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Mike (WA)

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rrlund

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gab

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Ken Macfarlane

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OliverGuy

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SweetFeet

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John_PA

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