Human water needs are no different, and people have based their settlements around springs since time immemorial. Springs are still considered an asset to a farm, providing water for livestock now as they did then. But unlike their animals, humans have used springs for many different purposes besides just drinking, bathing or cooling off during the hot Midwestern summers. Once a campsite, cabin or homestead was established at a particular spring, the other advantages of spring water became apparent. Probably by accident, someone discovered that perishable foods did not spoil so quickly when they were kept cold.
Springs furnish an abundant supply of cool to cold running water.
Spring houses are a now vanishing relic of these days before mechanical refrigeration. Although the native peoples used springs for irrigation and navigation, and took advantage of the ponded water produced by beaver dams and the like, it is unclear if they used the springs as sources of mechanical power. White settlers, familiar with water powered grist and sawmills in Europe often preferred spring branches for their mills because they were smaller, easier to dam, and somewhat more predictable than rivers, whose flooding rampages typically brought much more destructive debris with the increased water flow. Bigger was not necessarily better when it came to spring use as mill powersites. Factors such as easy accessiblity from wagon roads, a suitable building location safe from the branch during flood, and enough of a population in an area to support a miller also played a part.