Wisconsin Stories: Our Towns

It has become the way of life there, crony meets crony, politician meets voter, housewife meets neighbor and water meets pail.

Introduced by Tom McCay

Tom McKay is the coordinator of the Office of Local History, Wisconsin Historical Society.

In Drummond's years as a company town, the Rust-Owen Lumber Company played a role in almost every aspect of daily life, from selling waste lumber for firewood to providing well water at the town pump.

For the people of Drummond, the company owned the mill where they worked, the store where they shopped, the houses where they lived and the well where they pumped water. Even so, the workers and families in Drummond made the town their own. The town pump played its part.

The town pump became a main meeting place in the village. Morning, afternoon or evening, almost anyone who lived in Drummond might show up at the pump.

Bob Wanger at the Middle Street Pump. Courtesy of the Drummond Museum, Drummond, Wis.

Talk about the weather, word of a new engagement, news of a neighbor's illness and just plain gossip passed back and forth at the town pump. Through the passing of months and years, adults watched children with hands cupped for a quick drink grow up before their eyes.

The passage of time and the cutting of the surrounding forest eventually closed the mill, but the town pump remained. With the company gone, the people of Drummond continued to meet at the town pump, drawing water from the ground and the closeness of community from each other.

Drummond Boasts One of Few Town Pumps
The Ashland Press, 1930

Almost anywhere else in the State, the turn of a tap brings drinking water. But not in Drummond.

Most of the four hundred people living in Drummond use the Old Town Pump, for drinking, bathing, cooking or scrubbing and washing. For years the folks have relied upon moonlight and lanterns, but this winter the Town rigged up an electric light across the street from the pump.

From early morning until late at night, an almost continual stream of water pours from the pump. It pours into buckets, pails, boilers, kegs, bottles, barrels and cream cans. Grade school pupils and grandfathers take turns in the daily trip to the Town Pump for water.

Martin Overby at the Town Pump. Courtesy of the Drummond Museum, Drummond, Wis.

It's been that way in Drummond since the first woodsman swung his axe and started the lumber business, that built the community. Martin Overby has been using the pump since 1892 and it was dug by hand before that time. It has been the Town Pump since the days when every town had one.

Other towns went on to install water systems and Drummond could not. Any resident of Drummond can tell you all about the huge shield of granite sixty feet down under the city, that drills have not been able to penetrate.

Fortunately for Drummond, the granite shelf ends almost abruptly on Superior Street, that cuts the town in half. The south half can dig down and get water, the other half can not.

The Town Pump was dug in the early 1880s and had served the people ever since. It has become the way of life there, crony meets crony, politician meets voter, housewife meets neighbor and water meets pail.

To keep the records straight, there are seven ways to get water in Drummond. The town owns three pumps; the Town Pump, one higher up on Superior Street and the one by the school. Drummond Auto Company has a pump, Arthur Lee has a pump behind his tavern, the bank has a well and the railroad has its own water supply. Most people, however, use the Town Pump.

Martin Overby, an old-timer and one of Drummond's early settlers, said it was dug all the way with hand and shovels in the days of the lumber business. He said a pretty long time ago they dug it about eighty feet. The original pump has been replaced in that time and repairs have been made like pumps, leathers, etc. But in memory of man, one cannot recall any one time that the pump handle broke under the strain. The Town pays for all the costs of maintaining the pumps and keeps them in good working order.