The Water Question at Lancaster, New York

Date: 1890 to 1901
Location: Lancaster, Erie, New York, United States

The Water Question at Lancaster, 1890-1900

In the decade of the 1880s few households in the United States had an indoor bathroom fitted with a toilet, bath, or even running water. The free-standing, flush toilet became widely available in the late 19th century and these toilets were gaining in popularity. A toilet is a device that uses the force of water to flush it through a drainpipe to another location. In most 19th century households, the water for flushing came from a private well and the drainpipe ran to a cesspool and soaking pit. The transition to indoor plumbing using a central water source required new technologies and large-scale modernization of infrastructure.

The attached essay explores that modernization in the Village of Lancaster. The story began in 1890 and proceeded for more than ten years. To me the story was most interesting when I dug into the specific details of what was called the water question, and so the essay attempts to provide details of the historical events. As the history produced many surprises the essay became longer and longer. I thus found it useful to divide the piece into two parts. Part One explores the period from 1890 to 1895 and is presented here.

Part One (1890-1895) of the story is here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K58TAxjg0ib4w1hs-tEcpDIAuH_Mo03i/view

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The manual fire engine of the Cayuga Engine Company, 1895.
Source: Lancaster Times, April 18,1895

Between 1890 and 1895, the property owners of Lancaster had voted against two different proposals to install a central water network throughout the village. Many property owners objected to the cost of installing the proposed systems, others objected to the high fees charged by a private water supplier.

But the water question did not fade. In the aftermath of a devastating fire that swept Lancaster's central business district in 1894 the businessmen of Lancaster demanded, with ever increasing fervor, a central water system to protect their property against fire.

A solution was difficult to formulate. Village residents would not connect their homes to a central water system and bring their faucets and water closets indoors until after December 1900. In the period between 1896 and 1900, another water works proposal would falter, another fire would sweep Central Avenue, and as the decade entered its last few years the local supplies of water became insufficient to meet the growing need, which created new problems and more delays for the village.

Part Two (1895-1900) of the story is here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A5ZAF0v0sUeNcU6-AW7jmXdLt4xrNuL8/view