Vintage Windmill and Wind Generator Forum

In my Windmill Journal from Australia a story tells about a hand dug well 164 ft 6inches deep. 3X6 feet timbered with Cypress. Had a ladder going down the center. Was pumped by two large square well buckets. By an apparatus powered by horses. I know all early wells were hand dug but never knew of any 164 feet deep. Of course for me 20 ft down in a hole would be too deep.

When I was a kid, there was two wells close that were hand dug, both over 200ft. They were lined with redwood ordered in on railroad. One of them they put a PVC casing down and back filled with pea gravel, the other one is probably still there but the water table has dropped so far it will be dry. I think one was dug in 1886 and the other in 87.

WOW! The fellows who dug down 200 ft into the earth by hand were real men.

I would love to have ground like that. I can only get down 3 to 4ft here and then I hit solid bed rock.

A well driller is one of a few professions that you start at the top and work down.
Those 200 footers you work a long time to get down.

My area of the country very few wells mostly cisterns. I met a man who lived close to me and he helped clean out the cistern at his Grandpa's house. They are 30 40 ft deep. Shaped like a coke bottle setting in the ground.