HISTORY CORNER

NASHVILLE’S SECOND WATER SYSTEM

BY RIDLEY WILLS II

Albert Stein, an experienced German engineer, was commissioned by the city of Nashville in about 1832 to build a new waterworks system. To finance the construction, the city issued its first bond issue for $50,000. The bonds were sold in Philadelphia.

Stein erected waterworks system No. 2 on the grounds of what in 1873 became the Tennessee School for the Blind on Fillmore Avenue in South Nashville. The pumping station was located on the lower bluff close to the river where the Tennessee Central

Railroad tracks were later built. The reservoir was immediately north of the School for the Blind where General Hospital would be built in 1890. Cast iron water mains were installed to bring the water to the city. When the system was completed Oct. 31, 1833, the city celebrated with a grand parade, speeches and booming cannon.

The plant functioned satisfactorily for many years. Its chief problem was that muddy water from the river could not always be settled out in the reservoir. To solve this, plant superintendent James Wyatt devised an ingenious system of using naturally filtered water from the river. In about 1878, he installed a cast-iron cage that was 152 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 6 feet high, in the natural gravel beds on the Upper Island that was adjacent to the present pumping station on Omohundro Drive. River water seeped or percolated through the natural beds of gravel and sand into the collecting cage and was purified in the process. He also had workers install approximately 12,000 feet of 36-inch iron pipe along the river bank to the pumping station.

Wyatt’s system of natural filtration seems to have worked very well in supplying clear water to the city for about 20 years. There were occasions, however, when the river was at its lowest levels, that it was necessary to take unfiltered water directly from the river. To extend the life of the system, the city made extensive repairs to the boilers and pumping machinery in the early 1880s.