Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1917-06-07
RANDOM RECOLLECT|ONS
Continued from First Page.

Cherry. streets, OF which mention
was made in a former article, found
that their water supply (from wells
on their own grounds) was begin
ming to fail, and arrangements
were made with the railroad COM
pany until they discontinued
operations. l think there was also
a pipe line laid to the box factory,
located east of Walnut street, in
the early eighties.
When the village began to re-
ceive benefit from this private
water works spstem was in this
way: In the early seventies,
when the town had come into-pos-
session of a hand fire engine, it
was found that fire engine with
out the necessary water was rather
poor implement with which to
put out a fire. So arrangements
were made with the railroad COM
pany through the late Andrew
Roach, who for many years held
the important position of track
master with the D. & M. R. R.,
for walter supply from their tank
house for fire protection for the
business section of the town. Then
the village put in large cistern on
Front street in front of Joe Hide
brands brick store building, and
this cistern was connected to the
railroad company's pipe line.
Another large cistern was put in
on Second street in front of Mrs.
Miller's boarding house. Then
the village put in large brick
cistern at the intersection of Lou
isiana avenue and Second street,
which had a capacity of about a
thousand barrels. This last cistern
was the one that some Bowling
Green politicians-the mean
things-accused us of using as
ballot box on the occasion of that
memorable county-seat election in
which the official count showed
that Perrysburg township had
polled about 3,016 votes in favor
of removing the county-seat back
to this town-where it rightfully
belongs-all of which had been
voted by real, bona fide, dead and
alive" voters, as my dear old dad
used to say, and he ought to know,
for he was usually on the election
board. Well, all of these cisterns
were connected with the railroad
company's water works system,
and they were generally kept full
of water-except when the man
whose duty it was to see to it, for
got all about them. Sometimes
when the firemen would get out
the old Mohawk" on a summers
evening for little practice and ex-
ercise-lovely sport, on real hot
night-when they would drop the
suction pipe into the big cistern
they would find it contained only
a few buckets of water instead of
the thousand barrels or so that
should be there. But most of the
time the fire cisterns were kept
we'll filled, and they were of some
protection against fire. Also at
one time there was pipe and
valve connected with the pipe line
at Second street to permit the vii
lage street sprinkler to fill up there
instead of having to take his
wagon to the river to get his supply.
The water house at the railroad
also was nice place for a lot of
boys to take aplunge and swim in.
OF course it was not like the river,
the area being very limited, but
it was very handy, and it was often
taken advantage of on a hot day to
take a cool dip, by Eddie Fitz-
gerald, George Karin, Willie Canal
ly, Eddie Carroll, Charlie Wedertz,
George Hufford, and several
Others who stood in" with Will
Norton when he was the station
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