Horse Trough Well Still Flowing

Horse watering troughs were as common, and necessary, in the olden days as gas stations are today. Troughs have disappeared in most communities, but Punta Gorda's ancient thirst quencher still exists unobtrusively in the center of downtown at the northeast corner of Marion and Taylor streets.

Every day, dozens of folks bring jugs to the "fountain of youth" for a supply of drinking water containing a score of minerals -- including twice as much radium as permitted in the public water supply by the county health department.

Indeed, devotees of the artesian well water say it is the low level of radium that keeps them healthy and free of colds. They point out that massive doses of radium are used to counteract cancer.

Local authorities shrug their shoulders. They disapprove of the water's availability but admit the health risk is minimal. A person drinking three quarts of the water every day for a lifetime would have three chances in a million of developing a cancer they would not have had otherwise.

Punta Gorda's relic fountain is supplied by an artesian well somewhere under its main street. There is no record of the date when drilled, but it has been there as long as any oldtimer can remember. According to Historian U.S. Cleveland, the gushing well originally supplied a wooden trough on Taylor Street right-of-way at the intersection of Marion Avenue.

The trough was not disturbed when Taylor and Marion were first paved, with asphalt, in 1914. However, it was removed when Taylor was widened in 1919; and a bubbling spigot for public use was constructed closer to the sidewalk.

It was threatened again in 1928 when Barron Collier was renovating the old Hotel Punta Gorda. He offered to pay for widening Marion and Taylor and installing cast iron street lamps. The old artesian bubbler was deemed an eyesore, so it was slated to be removed.

This upset those residents for whom the well was the last source of mineral water. They raised such a fuss, the city authorized a young policeman named Ira D. Atkinson to canvass citizens for funds to save the venerable facility. Atkinson, now 93, recalled that drive in a 1971 Herald interview:

"It was hard getting the water without getting all splashed up, so we got the idea of building the fountain. At that time, almost everybody came to get water from the artesian well. The city had a water plant, but it didn't work very well, and the water was salty. The only other water for drinking came from cisterns. I didn't have a whole lot of trouble collecting the $100 needed for creating the fountain which has flowed continuously and bountifully ever since."

The fountain was moved back once more and decorated with glazed tiles. Two steps were constructed so children could get a drink. The bubbler was capped with a turn-on spigot.

Smells Awful, Tastes Good

The water contains hydrogen sulfide which smells and tastes like rotten eggs when first emerging from the deep aquifer. However, the smell and strong taste evaporates after several hours exposure to the air. Thereafter, the water is delicious.

City fathers and the state Department of Transportation wish they could remove the fountain and plug the well. The city worries about possible liability for unapproved drinking water. The state fears the well casing will rust through someday and undermine the roadway which is the terminal section of Route 17.

A determined effort in 1987 to find the old well casing with magnetic detectors and plug it was fruitless -- much to the relief of mineral water fans. There were too many other metal lines and cables under the intersection to single out the well.

It is not certain the well is at that intersection. An article in the Punta Gorda Herald of Feb. 21, 1902, recommended more extensive use of artesian wells in place of rain-water cisterns:

"Other places boast of their sulphur springs and sulfur water and hold out the possession of these as an inducement to settlers. Punta Gorda has a vast supply of fine sulphur water beneath her surface and it need only to be tapped to run out at the top of the ground.

"There are several flowing sulphur wells within the corporate limits, but they are not near enough to the business center. The council should by all means give us one on Marian (the original spelling) Avenue -- say, at the intersection of Cross street (U.S. 41 south). From here, a pipe should conduct the water down to King Street (Tamiami Trail) thus supplying all the business houses and hotels and some private houses." As for cisterns, the Herald had only scorn. Later that year it wrote: "At least one large taxpayer of Punta Gorda has expressed his willingness to be taxed for the purpose of securing a reliable supply of clean drinking water. Any cistern that has not been cleaned out in the past six months has at least one inch of mud at its bottom, to say nothing of wiggletails, roaches, and possibly a dead rat or cat. The Council should by all means give us an artesian well, or several of them."

In reporting a devastating storm, the Herald said: "The cistern at the home of Mr. M. Tucker got so full of rain the bottom hoop burst, and all the water ran out. Two inches of inky mud was left in the cistern as a mute appeal to Council for an artesian well. Mr. Tucker is enjoying a water famine through no fault of his own."

Most homes had a cistern for storing rain for drinking and laundry. The water tasted musty and was quickly used up during dry winter months. Folks came from miles around by horse and wagon to fill jugs from the Cross and Taylor streets artesian wells for drinking.

Deep artesian wells were popular throughout the county from earliest times. The first at Punta Gorda was put down at the end of the 4,200-foot railroad "long dock" in 1886 to supply steamships and the cluster of businesses there. The dock and well-casing disappeared after they were abandoned by the railroad. However, local boaters say at low tide they can see the well still flowing on the harbor bottom.

Two strongly flowing artesian wells supplied the Consolidated Ice Manufacturing, Refrigeration and Fish Company organized in 189l. It occupied two blocks bounded by Virginia, Marion, Shreve and Berry streets adjacent to the Florida Southern Railway line to Long Dock. Ice was slid down a chute to a dock where the Punta Gorda Boat Club is now located.

Water from one of the ice company wells was piped to Punta Gorda's first swimming pool nearby. Collier also drilled an artesian well in 1926 to fill his hotel's huge swimming pool. The same well furnished water for hot mineral baths in a final effort to turn the hotel into a health spa during the 1950s.

The Fountain Of Youth

The Cross Street well, long sought by the Herald, was drilled in 1905 in the very middle of the road. A 1908 postcard of the circular pool calls it "The Fountain of Youth. Many residents drank directly from the spigot, relishing the sulphur taste.

City Council minutes of July 14, 1914, state that "the remodeling and changing the location of the town watering pool (at Cross St.) is left entirely with Mayor B.H. Mobley," prior to paving Marion for the first time. The concrete pool was replaced with the usual wooden trough on the west side of Cross Street about 50 feet north of Marion. It, too, was demolished and the well plugged about 1936. The casing stub is still there under a manhole cover.

The Taylor Street well would have gone the way of all others in April 1971 if Atkinson, then a retired sheriff deputy, had not come forward a second time to save it from a street-widening program. The city was putting down new sewer, water and drainage lines. To squeeze them in, the curbs would have to utilize more of the right-of-way.

Once more, local folks rallied to save the well. City Manager Robert Hollander and Public Works director Vernon Crawford promised to save the fountain. "Even if we have to shave the well casing to bring the well below the construction, pipes will be connected to the lowered well to bring water back to the fountain," said Hollander.

George Vickers, on-site engineer for the contractor, saved the fountain by taking off the "kiddie steps" and moving five palm trees on the other side of the street to Gilchrist park in order to get the necessary six more inches for the widening.

Today, the mineral well still flows -- minus the steps children once climbed to sample radium-laced water.

Author: Lindsey Williams