From natural springs and wells to ECUA, here's how Pensacola has gotten its water

Warm summer months almost always trigger the use of greater quantities of water, for modern families have, step by step, come to engage in more reasons to turn on the faucets. Fortunately, Escambia County's water system is well engineered and operated. Emerald Coast Utilities Authority also used strong judgement in encouraging customers to realize that the water supply does have limits. The aquifer from which the flow is drawn is truly remarkable, and each household is fortunate in the ease and cost factors as they are viewed. The background also has its historic twist. In the high-usage season, it is interesting to look back to how our early citizen drew their fluid supplies, and what measures fell into place to create today's methods.

Prior to 1885, Pensacolians had two choices in gaining their water. One was to walk to one of the flowing, protected natural springs which the city guarded. The downtown springs were something of which early townsmen freely boasted.

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The second early option was to dig a well and bring up water in a bucket. The fact that well driller Peter Paine became a wealthy man suggests that he drew for many such customers. Into the 1880s, those were the existing water source methods, yet with them, the community had a serious drawback. There was no strong water source for firemen to employ as they fought a blaze! And in '84 to '85, the city suffered unusually hot, dry summers, and with them came a number of costly fires. The firemen had to literally bring their water with them, carried by their engines.

Benjamin Pitt operated a lumber yard on the waterfront, and he also was a volunteer fireman. When in '84 to '85 he and his peers suffered a series of firefighting misadventures, he organized a group of peers, and they approached the city commissioner, led by W.D. Chipley, asking for a franchise to install a water system. They would use power equipment and the placement of pipelines through key neighborhoods. The commissioners agreed. To operate this system, Pitt formed the Pensacola Water Co., a private concern that would meet the firefighting need. They then would pipe water to homes and businesses for a fee. A newspaper account declared that with these additions, the time of fire disasters was past! Well, that wasn't quite so, but things surely did improve. For the next 20 years, the privately owned Pensacola Water Co. was extended and was viewed as efficient.

However, by the early 1900s, the city population was growing, and the areas requiring water coverage grew likewise. Also a factor, Pitt was gone and the water company's leadership was faltering. And so Mayor Charles Bliss and councilmen took a step which was agreed upon generally: the city bought the water company, and with it, the full connection service of sewer lines that also had been installed in 1885. For the next six decades, city operators managed the water-sewer system, making extensions as population and businesses extended.

Meanwhile, in the post-war world, subdivisions were being established, and using several methods, each had its own water and sewage treatment operations. Into the 1970s, line ownership conflicts were rising, thus there was popular appeal to establish a single ownership-management system. With legislative assistance, this came into being. Thus came Escambia County Utilities Authorities, or ECUA, an organization whose name would be altered several times, but whose effectiveness continued. ECUA operated as a unit, combining all city and suburban water-sewer utilities, and as the region continued its development, there was reason to applaud the presence of this system.

Examining these summer months, as families find use of water for so many additional things (lawn care, swimming pools) the users might well pause for a moment and recall the process through which today's water became efficiently available. Ben Pitt took the first steps (for his own unusual reasons) and in a timely manner, system officials have proceeded, paralleling what's happening in cities and towns across the land. Water is essential to home life, and local residents may well feel fortunate that they enjoy the product of a fine system and that the water received is of such unique quality.

John Appleyard is a Pensacola historian and writes a weekly historical column in the Pensacola News Journal. His 15-minute films about Pensacola are viewable, without-charge, Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in The Cottage, 213 E. Zaragoza St.