|
CITY OF DUBOIS Page 171
a hose cart. This cart is still in existence, it having escaped the
fire of 1888, at which time the hose was burned.
This fire protection was efficient and at the time of
the burning of the City Hotel at the corner of Long Street and
Courtney Street, in March, 1886, it did efficient service,
preventing the spread of the fire at that time, beyond two or three
wooden buildings.
A report of this company given in "Mason's History" of
1887 states, "The Company is out of debt and has a small surplus in
its treasury." Apparently the persons who organized this water
company did not realize the opportunity they had for a profitable
investment. They either lacked executive ability, or were
indifferent to the needs of the people. At this time a franchise of
this character was exclusive and it would have been no trouble for
this company to secure the right to lay water mains on any or all of
the streets of the Borough, as well as a tax to pay fire hydrant
rental.
But by 1887 this "small surplus" mentioned evidently
had become exhausted. James P. Roscoe purchased the water lines and
the pump. He dug a well on the banks of Sandy Creek, about where
Rose Alley is now located and built a reservoir on his lot on East
Long Avenue, intending to pump water into that reservoir to be used
for domestic purposes. On the 18th of June, 1888, when the fire came
along this water plant was useless.
Immediately after the fire of 1888 the Borough Council
and the citizens of the town were insistent upon something being
done to protect property against fires. The Borough Council
submitted to the electors of the Borough the proposition of levying
a gas and water tax for furnishing water to the inhabitants, and
lighting of streets. This election carried by an almost unanimous
vote.
As soon as it got abroad that, the Borough of DuBois
had decided to levy a tax for the payment of water for fire
hydrants, several adventurers came to town to see what they could
get. Among these was a corporation known as the "Michigan Pipe
Company," of Bay City, Michigan, engaged in the manufacturing of
wood water pipe under the Wyckoff Patent. In an industrial edition
of the DuBois Courier, published in August, 1889, we gather these
facts: "The great question, the all important question in this age,
is pure and sufficient water supply." The writer of this editorial
goes on to say,
"Thanks to the energy and enterprise of the Michigan
Pipe Company, DuBois will soon be supplied with water as pure as
nature can produce it, not from polluted river or stagnant lake, but
miles away from the haunts of men they are constructing their
reservoir, out of an inexhaustible mountain spring, that is entirely
free from any impurities, they are getting a supply of water which,
in volume, they can be able to furnish a city many times the size of
DuBois, with abundance of this necessary element.*********
|
