While Carbondale, West Frankfort and Other Towns Suffer Marion Has Ample Supply
Residents of Marion, who can reflect back twenty-three years ago can sympathize with Carbondale, West Frankfort and other Southern Illinois cities who are now suffering from a water shortage.
Twenty three years ago, during WW I, Marion was only able to have water for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. You had to fill your bathtubs and surplus pans with needed water for drinking and sanitation. Citizens were patrolling the streets to prevent the possibility of a fire breaking out, and the community was in constant fear that what water they had would evaporate before rains filled the deep wells from which our water was then obtained.
In 1921, the City of Marion built its present lake and water system and three years ago they raised the height of the dam by two feet which has given the city plenty of water, and Manager Henry Rix of the Marion plant said Monday morning that he could safely say we had ample water for six months and probably longer, if it did not rain or snow during that time.
Rix said that the lake was only down 35 inches due to evaporation and usage, which is only 11 inches below the original level of the lake.
The Chicago Daily News on Saturday, in commenting upon the water shortage in Southern Illinois, said in part: “The pond that was the water supply of Carbondale is a weed patch. Thompson’s Lake, supplemental supply, is fast being drained of its resources. Sprinkling lawns in the city has been prohibited for weeks. A housewife cannot even use sufficient water to wash her porch. The only bath and automobile gets is in water trucked into town from one of the nearby drying up creeks.”
“Racing against time and the dwindling supply in the city mains, workmen are laying a three and a half mile pipe from Crab Orchard Lake to attach to the municipal system.”
Sam’s Notes: When this was written Crab Orchard Lake had been completed and was being enjoyed by locals recreationally. The same month this article appeared, it was announced that the Illinois Ordnance Plant was going to be built and we were four months away from entering WWII. Whereas, the new and improved city lake south of Marion may have been ample at the time, it certainly wouldn’t meet the burgeoning demands of a growing city. The city reservoir can be seen, south of Marion, at the bottom of the 2012 Google image attached.
(Marion Daily Republican, August 18, 1941)