Redefining "Public" Water Supplies, 1870-1890: a Study of Three Iowa Cities

WITHOUT WATERWORKS, warned a Boone, Iowa, newspaper reporter in 1882, the city would "surrender," and "sink into the condition of a small way station in the map of Iowa." That journalist was not alone in his views. In Iowa City and Marshalltown, too, residents actively sought the construction of waterworks as a way to lure manufacturers and "capitalists," as well as to increase city populations. These Iowans perceived a waterworks—that is, a central pumping station that provided a steady pressurized water supply through a network of mains—as a necessary attribute of a "live" city; without one a city would be unable to attract new residents or manufacturers. Their belief spurred them to act: between 1876 and 1885 residents in these three cities took steps to ensure the construction of waterworks, a process that involved more than issuing bonds, hiring engineers, and passing ordinances. It also required that city residents adopt new ideas about the form and uses of a city water supply. It required them, in other words, to redefine the meaning of a "public" water supply.^