First Irrigation Well in Bailey County

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passing it along straight. Now, you're going to want to look about five hundred yards south of where you're standing, because that's where it happened. That's the site of the first irrigation well in Bailey County, and brother, the story behind it is something else.

In 1909, on the farm of a man named Willard Burns, a group of workers climbed down into the earth and started digging. By hand. We're not talking about some narrow little borehole, either.

This was what they called a pit well, big enough for workmen to actually enter, six feet by ten feet across and fifteen feet deep. Think about that for a second. Men with shovels, going down into the West Texas ground, in 1909, carving out a room underground just to find water.

When they finished, they dropped in a ten-inch centrifugal pump, and that pump pulled out a thousand gallons of water per minute. A thousand gallons. Per minute.

Out of dry Bailey County soil. Now here's the part that gets me. When that well was completed, settlers came from miles around.

Miles around, across country that doesn't give up water easy, and they held what they called a water carnival. A celebration. Because water in a low-rainfall area isn't just convenient, it's the whole ballgame.

And that water carnival didn't just happen once. It became a local custom, whenever a new well was dug, folks would gather and celebrate all over again. Hundreds of such wells eventually got dug across the county, and those hundreds of wells are what made agriculture profitable out here where the rain doesn't cooperate.

But progress has a way of moving on. By the nineteen-twenties, turbine pumps came into use, and the old pit well and its centrifugal pump were abandoned. Today, the marker tells you plainly: no signs of it remain.

Not a trace. Just flat ground five hundred yards south, keeping a secret about the day a thousand gallons a minute changed everything in Bailey County.

What the marker says

500 Yards South to Site of First Irrigation Well in Bailey County Dug by hand in 1909 on farm of Willard Burns. A pit well (large enough for workmen to enter), it measured 6 by 10 feet across and 15 feet deep. A 10-inch centrifugal pump removed 1,000 gallons of water per minute. Upon its completion, settlers from miles around gathered to hold a "water carnival", which became a local custom whenever wells were dug. Hundreds of such wells made agriculture profitable in this low rainfall area. Well and pump were abandoned when turbine pumps came into use, 1920s. No signs of it remain. (1972)