The History Behind the Two Projects

This old wooden main that carried water to Minonk's residents was constructed similar to wooden barrels with reinforced steel bands and creosote on the outside. One of the employees of Hein Construction said it looked like the main was made of hollowed out cypress tree trunks. No one is sure how far the main reached from the first water tower that stood on the site of the present and fourth tower. Over the years pieces were uncovered near the former Masonic Temple building located on the northwest corner of Walnut and W. Sixth Street, the Baptist church on E. Fifth Street and on E. Sixth Street between Chestnut and Oak Streets. In the history of Minonk as written in the 1896 program booklet for the area Civil War veterans' reunion in Minonk it stated that by then the wooden main had mostly been replaced with iron pipes. As of that year the waterworks had successfully saved the city during several disastrous fires and was worthy of its cost.

All together Minonk has had four wells and four water towers. The first well was 1,850 feet deep and when the drillers got to the depth of 546 feet they hit the same vein of coal that was then being mined. In the Engineering News of December 22, 1888 it stated the pump well and reservoir in Minonk were finished and the steam pump had been put in position. Minonk residents drove their teams and wagons to the well on Sunday and filled their containers with steam-heated water that was used for Monday morning washday. Since the water cooled over night it needed to be heated to boiling the next morning on the old kitchen cook stove. The second well was 2,002 feet deep and was drilled near the first one and both are located inside the present and third pumping station. The third well is located south of the ambulance building on the 600 block of Jefferson Street and the present well was dug on the north side of the West Side Park. All four wells are in operation and tap water from the St. Peters Sandstone Aquifer, a deep vein of water that begins near Lake Superior and travels south to Texas.

Hein Construction workers have been doing a fine job of replacing the concrete sidewalks and driveways and repairing the streets that were dug up during this project.

In 1882 mine president and general manager, Miner T. Ames, who was born in New York, went back east for a visit and met a friend who worked at Edison Works in West Orange, New Jersey. This man came to Minonk to light the diggings at the mine but instead he strung electric wires to light the tower, engine rooms, tile factory, (the largest producer of drainage tile in the world) and the mine store. People came to Minonk from far and near to witness this miraculous invention. Minonk then became one of the first, if not the first, cities in the world to have incandescent lights.

In 1900 the second mine was sunk about a mile north of the first. It was in operation one year and then in 1901 the mine and mine store were closed. Minonk miners went to work in Rutland, Wenona, Toluca and Roanoke, many had moved to these towns. W. G. Sutton and J. S. Weber of Rutland leased the mine and reopened it in 1904 and that same year Vissering and Kohl Mercantile, located on 456 Chestnut Street, bought and moved into the vacated mine store.