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Picture of the day -
February 27, 2006
An Old Country Spring House
Today's picture features an old spring house in rural Washington County,
Virginia. Although they are rarely used these days, there are plenty of spring
houses still standing all across rural America.
In times past, whenever a family purchased land (or had some granted to them),
if at all possible they chose a site near a spring to build their home.
Municipal water supplies didn't exist out in the country so a continually-wet
spring was worth a small fortune to the landowner. In fact, countless family
feuds and broken friendships have resulted over nothing more than ownership or
usage rights to a good spring.
But springs served another important purpose for families in addition to being reliable sources
of cool, clear drinking water: they also served as the family's "refrigerator".
Typically, a small, one-room building was laid up out of rock over the spring,
making sure to leave a way for the water to exit through a pipe or under the
bottom of one of the walls. Then, enough soil and rocks were removed from the
bottom of the "spring house" to create a shallow pool of cool spring water.
Crocks or bottles filled with milk, butter and other perishables were stored
neck-deep in the cool water in order to keep them from spoiling. The walls would
usually be lined with shelf after shelf of canned goods (the mason jar variety),
potatoes and other food items.
There would usually be a bucket or two kept in the spring house for carrying
water into the home for drinking, cooking, cleaning and bathing. And no spring
house was complete without the requisite "dipper" which was used to grab a quick drink
of cool water without having to go inside the house. A stop by the spring house
for a refreshing drink was usually the first priority after a long, hard day of
working out in the fields.
But times have changed. Municipal water mains now run through most communities
in rural America, and it's quite rare indeed to find a house without a working
refrigerator in the kitchen. The country spring house is of little use now that
we have water on tap along with modern, affordable refrigerator-freezers
equipped with through-the-door ice and water dispensers.
But many of these old structures still stand over their long-abandoned springs,
and if you close your eyes you can almost hear the sound of a sweaty child
gasping for breath between gulps from a well-used dipper.
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