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“It’s got a lot of years on it.”
Mark Wallace, one of Louisville Water’s contracted inspectors, is talking about the 1934 water main unearthed after part of the pipe burst overnight Tuesday.
The force of the water buckled part of Jefferson Street near South 15th Street in the Russell neighborhood. In the daylight, a crew digging to repair the pipe got an up-close view of the neighborhood’s past.
“While it doesn’t happen often, it’s not unusual to find pieces of Louisville’s history when we’re doing work,” said Louisville Water Vice President of Communications Kelley Dearing Smith.
In this case, workers found remnants of Louisville’s trolley track system buried under the pavement.
This photo from the UofL Libraries Digital Collection taken in 1928 shows the tracks running along 15th Street near Magazine Street, just a few blocks south of where Tuesday’s water main break happened.
“Through the years, I’ve seen all that kind of history. Every area is different. There’s always something that’s a little different from the past; cobblestones, the trolley tracks.
That brick wall (uncovered Tuesday), you run across some of those, some of the old cisterns that were used back in the early ‘30s and ‘40s for the firefighting,” Wallace said.
Smith added, “As we repair/replace older infrastructure, we’ll often see the foundry dates on a pipe. Seeing a stamp of 1879 or 1890 on an enormous cast iron pipe or valve makes you realize the engineering and strength that went into building the original Water Works.”
Now known as Louisville Water, it’s the company’s rich history that amazes Wallace.
“I think what is so neat is seeing the old pictures when a lot of these large (water) mains were put in. The number of people and the riggings they used, how water mains were developed back in the early days, how they moved pipe around without modern equipment; that’s what’s so interesting.”
While technology and other advancements have changed how we work and how the city looks today, discoveries like these continue to fascinate many of us with glimpses into the past.
