It’s easy to turn on a tap to wash your hands, but in the 1870s it was difficult to access water to put out a fire in Guelph.
The changing water infrastructure in the City of Guelph was heard about from the history tour at Doors Open Guelph on Saturday.
Guelph Waterworks Pumping Station Engine House is city owned and a designated heritage property.
On display was a 1984 map which pinpoints all the hydrants and cisterns in the city. The map isn’t used anymore.
“In Guelph’s early days from 1820 to early 1870s water in the city was all accessed through private wells and cisterns,” said Jack Mallon, heritage planner with the City of Guelph.
This caused issues when firefighters had to use private wells and then would run out of water, he said. Most cisterns were small since they were for family’s water usage, Mallon said.
“After a number of very devastating fires in the city, fire service actually resigned en masse in protest,” said Mallon.
One of these fires sometimes in the 1860s included the Alma Block, a series of connected stone buildings across from the Dominion Public Building, the old post office.
Firefighters wanted to do their job but they didn’t have the infrastructure to do it, he said.
In many cases hoses weren’t large enough to reach a nearby well.
After the mass resignation of the fire service city council recognized they needed to modernize the water system.
“There was significant push back amongst some councillors who thought it was way too expensive and they should just keep doing things the old way,” said Mallon.
Arkell Springs near Watson and Arkell Roads was the site chosen and it is where most of the city gets its water today. About 60 to 80 per cent of the city’s water is from this source, Mallon said.
At the time, to build a main water source was a big undertaking since there were few other municipalities in the province with anything similar.
The spring was tapped and a pipe was run about eight kilometres to the water works building.
In the building there was a steam engine which would pump the water to a stand pipe.
In 1908 in an effort to help conserve water, 275,000 trees were planted around Arkell Springs.
Doors Open Guelph hasn’t been hosted since 2019. During early March 2020 the Waterworks building underwent some renovations, so this is the first time the public gets to see what it looks like now. It is used as office space for City of Guelph staff.
The ceilings in some rooms are original with the original paint. Most of the windows were restored.
“As a heritage planner I love to see original wood windows not only because it retains a valuable historic material but wood windows will last for centuries if they are well maintained,” said Mallon.
“Whereas vinyl windows end up in a landfill after 20 years. They can’t really be refurbished. It’s good for the environment.”
There was a 1908 edition to the 1879 building. Sometime in the 1950s or 1960s the building wasn’t used for its original purpose to distribute water across the city. A new water pump building was constructed next door.
“For the last 50 years it was used as a warehouse just gathering dust and kind of falling into disrepair,” said Mallon.
The undertaking of creating new water infrastructure is a story worth preserving, said Mallon, in an interview with GuelphToday. “This building is kind of the last remaining remnant of that entire infrastructure that was laid.”
“I feel like water is one of those things that people take for granted too. We don't think there was a time in this city that you couldn’t just go to your tap and turn water on. And so this kind of marks the starting point for that being a thing for people in Guelph,” said Mallon.
And shows Guelph becoming a more modern city, he said.