City officials know it's the water line, but proving it remains the issue.
And at stake is funding for the relocation of the city's transmission line that runs along the highway between the center of town and the pumping station north of the Putnam County Fairgrounds. Water Department employee Charles Wells has done some independent research at the DePauw University Archives, which suggest the water line was installed as early as 1876. That's the same year Gen. George Custer was losing his scalp to the Indians at the Little Big Horn and the U.S. was awarding Alexander Graham Bell a patent for the telephone. In other words, a long, long time ago. The line was probably built on private property along what was certainly then a county road of dirt or brick.