Water from the well. Bucket to Artesian, Texas, 1910

Drawing water from the well, Olivia Colony, Calhoun County, Texas. Circa 1910.

In this picture we see Hulda Damstrom, Conrad Damstrom and a "yet to be firmly identified" young lady bucketing water from an early well in Calhoun County, Texas.

By the date of this picture, "dug wells" like this one were already being replaced by "artesian wells" in the Olivia area.  In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Texas farmers were just beginning to realize the potential of artesian wells.  In this type of well, a narrow hole is drilled several hundred feet to tap water trapped deep underground.  Natural pressure causes the water to rise up the pipe of the well. 

In the undated manuscript “Olivia”, B. H. Rupard writes

“In 1905 Mr. John Lind solved the water problem when he dug the first artesian well on the Rev. C.J. Damstrom home place, later Mr. Victor Damstrom assembled a well drlling unit and many excellent flowing wells were drilled in the area.”

The experiment was a great success.  The description of Olivia area wells (in a survey of wells in Calhoun County) published in 1941 noted:  

“Very few shallow wells have been used in the area since it was demonstrated, about 1908, that good artesian water could be obtained at fairly shallow depths. ...   The water from the flowing wells in this area averages fresher and softer than the water from any group of wells in the county.”

You can find the map showing the Olivia area, the wells and who owned them (some of them who are included  in these pictures) on the "maps" page. The full report can be found on the Internet at this link.    It includes so much data, all the drillers logs - showing all the strata they found as they dug.  So if you want to know about Calhoun County, Texas "bottom to top" check it out!

Identifiers:
Negative #: Paulson236
Place: Olivia Colony (Calhoun County) Texas
circa: 1910
People:
  Hulda Josephine Damstrom (1 Apr 1881 - 17 Jun 1967)
  Conrad Julius Damstrom (22 Jan 1891- 19 Dec 1972)
  Victor Damstrom, not pictured but discussed (1 Jan 1878 to 25 Apr 1964)
  John Lind (mentioned but not pictured - you can find out more about him in this earlier post)

Sources

John T. Longsdale, “Ground water in Calhoun County, Texas.” in State Board of Water Engineers, Calhoun County, Texas,  Records of wells, drillers’ logs, water analyses, and map showing locations of wells. Works Projects Administrations Project 13784.  Analyses made and report mimeographed by Work Projects Admistration Project 17276. Sponsored by the State Board of Water Engineers with the United States Department of the Interior, Geological Survey, and the Bureau of Industrial Chemistry of the University of Texas cooperating.  Austin Texas, May 15, 1941.   Accessed on the Internet at the University of Texas Libraries. (This is part of the University of Texas Libraries “Virtual Landscapes of Texas”  So a special thanks to them!)

Seymour V. Connor, "ARTESIAN WELLS," Handbook of Texas Online,  accessed November 26, 2012. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

B.H. Rupard.  “Olivia: A consolidated history of the Swedish settlement in Calhoun County, Texas” [1966] n.p. (This manuscript is included in the microfiched records of the Eden Church, Olivia, Texas.  A letter is included at the end of the manuscript, dated August 21, 1966, which explains that the manuscript was distributed as part of the Olivia Volunteer Fire Department’s Fifth Annual Bar-B-Que. I accessed both the document and the Eden Church records at the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.)

Olivia Cemetery, Texas.  On the internet at Findagrave.com