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Look Back: St. Louis’ Water Supply
Date: 3/25/2011 Album ID: 1199804
Photos by St.Louis Post-Dispatch photographers and the Missouri History Museum
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By Tim O’Neil --- As the World’s Fair was about to open in 1904, chemists at the St. Louis Water Works tried to fix the decades-old problem of the brown hue of the city’s water supply. Mayor Rolla Wells had promised clear water for the fair, but time was running out.
John F. Wixford, the city chemist generally credited with the formula that made city water clear just before the World's Fair opened on April 30, 1904. The photo is from June 1927, shortly after Wixford returned to the city staff after an absence of 21 years. Wixford graduated from Washington University with a degree in engineering and first joined the city in 1903. At the time, city water flowed from faucets and hydrants with a distinctive brown hue. The reason was the muddy Mississippi River at Chain of Rocks, where the city still has a water works. (The mud actually is mainly from the Missouri River, which joins the Mississippi five miles upstream from Chain of Rocks.) Wixford adjusted the treatment method used in Quincy, Ill., by greatly increasing the amount of lime used to get sediment to sink much more quickly to the bottom of settling tanks. When the city began using Wixford's formula of lime and iron oxide, the water ran clear, and did so only one month before the fair opened in Forest Park. Wixford tried to patent the formula, but mayor Rolla Wells complained publicly that many people were involved in the deal. Wixford resigned in 1906 during the controversy, but later administrations praised his work. He died in 1935 at age 74. (Post-Dispatch)
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The water runs clear from fountains during the World's Fair at today's Art Hill. (Missouri History Museum)
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More clear sprays of city water at the fair. (Missouri History Museum)
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City water department workers run the machines that weigh and mix lime and iron sulfate for treating raw river water at the Chain of Rocks water works. The Chain of Rocks is a series of rock ledges on the river bottom. In times of low water, many boats couldn't pass through the chain's bubbling current until completion of the by-passing Chain of Rocks Canal and Granite City Lock 27 in 1953. (Post-Dispatch)
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Work underway at the Chain of Rocks plant in 1914 to add a filtration system to the series of settling tanks. The water department opened the plant in 1894, supplementing its former water works at Bissell Point, near the foot of East Grand Avenue. (Post-Dispatch)
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Mayor Henry W. Kiel turns a valve to begin using the new filtration system on May 15, 1915. At his left is city water commissioner Edward Wall, the city's water chief from 1911 to 1925. Kiel, namesake of Kiel auditorium and opera house, was mayor from 1913 to 1925. (Post-Dispatch)
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The interior of the new filtration plant in May 1915. (Post-Dispatch)
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Some of the maze of machinery in the Chain of Rocks works. (Post-Dispatch)
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Workers, with the help of horses, remove silt that had accumulated in one of the Chain of Rocks settling tanks. Workers removed 67,500 tons of mud from the tanks during this project in July 1927. It was an annual chore. Similar periodic digging, with power equipment, remains necessary today. (Post-Dispatch)
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An aerial view of the Chain of Rocks water works in September 1932. The city built the water works there because it is near the northern tip of the city limits, far upstream from urban development. The chain of rocks refers to rocky river bottom at that point. In the background is the Chain of Rocks Bridge, built in 1929 by a private company for $2 million. Six months before this photo was taken, the bridge sold to another company for $600,000 -- yet another victim of the Great Depression. The two intake towers of the water works are in the channel, near the bridge. (Post-Dispatch)
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Workers at the electrical control panel of the mixing machines that prepare lime and iron oxide in the first treatment of river water. The scene is from 1938. (Post-Dispatch)
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Boys venture onto the dike leading to the first intake tower on Jan. 23, 1947, during a time of low water. The river that day was at 2.2 feet on the gauge downtown. The falling river left driftwood on the rock dike. Water workers used the dike to get to the intake tower at times of low water. The intake pipe itself ran below the river bottom. (Post-Dispatch)
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A worker pushes a mortar cart through a water main being relined with concrete in August 1947. With water shut off from the main, air is forced into it so workers can make repairs. (Jack Gould/Post-Dispatch)
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Workers at the Chain of Rocks water plant climb onto their special streetcar at the Baden station on North Broadway for the short ride to work in December 1949. The water department ran its own streetcar line to the plant. The streetcar is the St. Louis County Museum of Transport just west of Kirkwood, and is one of three operating streetcars in the museum collection. (Post-Dispatch)
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The water town at East Grand Avenue and 20th Street in June 1954, shortly after the city spent $10,000 to restore it. The Corinthian tower, built in 1870, had been slated for demolition, but area residents persuaded the city to keep the landmark. The city still has three such towers, which were built to accommodate sudden surges in water pressure back when steam engines produced water pressure for the city's taps and hydrants. Inside the towers are tall, wide pipes. Pressure surges pushed water up into the vertical pipes, preventing blowouts on water mains. The city's electric-powered pumps no longer need that kind of surge protection. (Lester Linck/Post-Dispatch)
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A worker brushes river debris from one of the screens that keep fish, wood and other flowing things from getting into the water works through the intake pipes. This location has two screens, allowing workers to raise one for cleaning while using the other as a filter. The scene is from October 1957. (Post-Dispatch)
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The old water intake towers in the Mississippi River at Chain of Rocks, as seen in July 1971 from the Chain of Rocks Bridge. The city has drawn water since 1930 from a newer intake structure on the riverbank, but used the older of the two towers -- the one in the background -- into the 1980s. That tower was built in 1894 with construction of the original Chain of Rocks water plant. The newer tower in the foreground was built in 1913, but never operated efficiently because the current kept clogging it with sand. The two-lane Chain of Rocks bridge was closed in 1968, shortly after completion of the double Interstate 270 spans just upstream. The old bridge was reopened in 1999 as a pedestrian and bicycle bridge. (W. Thomas Stewart/Post-Dispatch)
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The Mississippi River at low stage rushes over the low-water dam that was built along with construction of the Chain of Rocks canal and lock at Granite City. The dam maintains enough depth upriver to permit barge traffic from Alton to the Granite City lock. The barge canal is on the far side of the island in the background of this November 1966 photograph. (Gene Pospeshil/Post-Dispatch)
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Leonard Williams, operator at the Chain of Rocks plant, drawing a sample of finished product at the 1915-vintage filtration house. Operators take water samples every four hours. The photograph is from December 1974. The city water division now has electronic monitors that constantly check water quality. (Lynn T. Spence/Post-Dispatch)
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