10 Wednesday Feb 2016
Posted in Baltimore, filtration, HISTORY, water history, Writing
https://www.createspace.com/4511014
I am doing another companion to this one – more technical. And I have already started on my Sewer History book.
01 Monday Feb 2016
Posted in Baltimore, filtration, HISTORY, water
So the Montebello 100th anniversary has come and gone. It was a pretty nice affair. I will start doing some more Water History on here, but it will probably be more Baltimore Sewage history. I have been doing some extensive research on the subject and will share some of it here. I will most likely put it in book form, to go with my water history book.
The first photo is inside the gate house, of which I talked earlier about. The second is a State Historical marker that was placed outside the gate house.
08 Sunday Mar 2015
Tags
Baltimore, engineering, FILTRATION, glass plate negatives, Gunpowder Falls, HISTORY, Lake Clifton, Lake Montebello, Montebello, photography, valve house, water history
Since starting my research in a museum archives, I’ve found quite a few discrepancies in the labelling of photographs and negatives. Some archival boxes were marked as Loch Raven Construction – 1909 (Which didn’t start until late 1912. These photos were actually the building of Lake Ashburton). Then there are the glass plate negatives marked as Loch Raven 1875-1881. A few of these are of Lake Montebello and Clifton. This is ok only because I know they are from a group known as the “permanent supply”, they belong together. But my problem is that somewhere along the timeline known as “History” someone decided to call the gatehouses ‘valve houses’ Why?? I do not understand the intent of changing the engineer’s designation of a structure from gatehouse to valve house? The drawings I have along with engineer’s reports all call these structures Gatehouses. Who changed it? Would it be alright to call one of Baltimore’s Little Tavern Restaurants – Small Bar Restaurants? Hell no! Words mean the same but they aren’t. You go to a small bar to get drunk – you go to the Little Tavern for their bags of hamburgers!!
I recently found a photograph of one I already have, that was mislabeled. Below is the photo from a glass plate , the other is from a framed photo that hung in the engineer’s office (Bottom Photo from 1894). The framed one clearly calls the Clifton Gatehouse a gatehouse, not a valve house – Stop the insanity and call it what it is!!!
From a mislabeled GPN saying this is Loch Raven
Framed photograph clearly marked as Gate House at Lake Clifton
Engineer Kenley’s office, 1894 with framed photographs hanging on the wall.
01 Sunday Mar 2015
Posted in HISTORY
Tags
Baltimore, engineering, FILTRATION, Gunpowder Falls, HISTORY, Jones Falls, Lake Clifton, Lake Montebello, Montebello, photography, water, water history
In 1881 the Permanent Supply started delivering water to Baltimore City, to help supplement the failing Jones Falls. Over the next few years, the Jones Falls would become so bad that larger reservoirs would be needed. Especially after the annexation of 1888. Plans started to take shape in 1904, after the Big Fire, to increase Loch Raven. And because of pollution, Baltimore started testing various forms of filtration.
These photos epitomize the sanitation conditions of our rivers and streams, and why water sources were failing:
Testing forms of filtration at both Montebello and Loch Raven gatehouses:
New pumping stations and reservoirs were built and/or their water redirected. Mt Royal no longer was receiving water from the Jones Falls, but from the Gunpowder Falls, via pumping stations. Below is the Mount Royal Reservoir, followed by the High Service Reservoir at Pimlico and below that the Eastern Pumping Station, which pumped water from Clifton to Guilford.
15 Sunday Feb 2015
Tags
Baltimore, engineering, FILTRATION, Gunpowder Falls, HISTORY, Lake Clifton, Lake Montebello, Montebello, photography, water, water history
The Gunpowder Temporary Supply was in use between 1873 and 1881, as the City required it. Work on the Permanent Supply started in 1875. This new supply would consist of a dam at Loch Raven, a 6-1/2 mile tunnel to Montebello, where a lake would be built with a gatehouse, to connect to another lake at Clifton. The properties at Montebello and Clifton belonged to Garrett and Hopkins.
On September 29, 1881, Lake Montebello reached its full height elevation of 163′. Lake Clifton would not be completed until late 1887. The water from Montebello flowed thru pipes, to the site of the lake and connected to pipes, to supply the City. Until the lake and gatehouse were completed at Clifton, a temporary shed was built over the pits that housed the gate valves. There was a house built on the property for the Gatekeeper. There was recent talk of leasing the Clifton Gatehouse for a Farmers Market, if the person would restore the building.
Water and Me 