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Tag Archives: Lake Roland

Tiffany Reservoir

11 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by Ronald Parks in Baltimore, engineering, water history

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Baltimore, bridges, Dams, engineering, Gunpowder Falls, HISTORY, Jones Falls, Lake Montebello, Lake Roland, maps, POLITICS, Public Works, Research, water history

Quite an interesting find: A map from 1867. What makes this map so interesting is that in all my research I never came across any references for having the Gunpowder Falls connected to a reservoir called Tiffany. Everything I read said it would flow by gravity to a new reservoir, Lake Montebello.

First off, let my give a little history on how this water supply came about. Starting in 1836: Samuel Smith, Mayor, appoints a committee to hire the services of a Delaware Engineer named John Randall, to study and recommend a plan for the Baltimore Water Supply. In 1837 John Randall proposed that the City of Baltimore gets its water from the Great Gunpowder Falls. Suggested building two dams, one dam on the Gunpowder near Tysons Mill and the second dam on the Western Run near York Road. Water from these dams was to flow by gravity into the valley of Jones Falls to a receiving reservoir at about Elevation 300. Lake Roland is at 300’

In 1850 consulting engineers are hired to look into Randall’s proposal and then in 1852 a water commission is formed.

1854 Mr. John Smith Hollins, Mayor. Mr. Alfred Duval, Civil Engineer of Baltimore and a private citizen, presented a report to the Council recommending the development of a water supply from the Gunpowder Falls. Duval recommended the building of a dam at Raven’s Rock, the closest point on the Gunpowder Falls to the City, and a tunnel to convey the water by gravity from the dam to a receiving reservoir near Montebello. Mr. Sickles recommended to the Council the adoption of a modified version of the Duval proposal. Mr. Sickles had made extensive surveys and reported to the Mayor and City Council a plan for an ‘air-lined tunnel’ to convey the water of the Gunpowder to the City. An ordinance authorizing such a development was passed by the Council in October but was never signed by the Mayor.

1857 Mr. Thomas Swann, Mayor. Mr. James S. Suter, Water Engineer (April 14, 1857). Original plan for the Jones Falls development was modified by an ordinance adopted in July.  Ordinance instructed Water Commissioners to procure an increased supply of water from Jones Falls “agreeably to a plan heretofore reported to the Council by James Slade, Civil Engineer”. The Water Board is reorganized on April 14 and the first Water Engineer appointed was James Suter.

1860 Swann Lake, (Lake Roland) is completed on the Jones falls.

1861 both the Hampden and Mt Royal Reservoirs are completed.

1866 Mayor John Lee Chapman realizes the approaching inadequacy of Jones Falls as a continuing source of future water supply.

1867 A map of Tiffany Reservoir is drawn up.

As can be seen in this portion of the map below, the location is on the western side of Hillen Road. On a 2018 map it would be the area of Hillen Rd. and 35th St. Where Mergenthaler school is and the area where the houses are on 35th. 

Here is an early photograph of the area where Lake Montebello would be. I am assuming that this is looking east from Hillen Rd to the site of the lake.

And here is an 1880s map showing how the lake and Loch Raven Conduit was (and is) laid out. 

Returning to the Tiffany Reservoir map, a couple things of interest: On the Tiffany map you can see it says Tiffany Conduit connected to Tiffany T (tunnel) then to Herring Run Conduit. Looking close you can see that there are two colorings of this conduit; the first and third sections being blue. The middle section (Tiffany T) is black. All the black sections in this conduit are underground. All the blue ones are open channels. I believe this is where the term ‘Air-lined Tunnel’ came from? That there was not enough head pressure to completely fill the underground portions. Following the tunnel north. The Herring Run Conduit becomes the Sater’s Ridge Tunnel.

And that turns into the Mine Bank Conduit, to the dam at Loch Raven. Another symbol on this map I like is that all the roads pass over the river and streams as regular bridges. On the one below you can see where the road passes over the Gunpowder, below the dam and around the corner, it is colored in, which shows that back in 1867 there was a covered bridge at Cub Hill and Cromwell Bridge roads. 

A couple more items of interest on this map – The location of Glenn Ellen Castle.

Swann Lake (Lake Roland). The title of the Tiffany Map is somewhat wrong. It states “In connection with the Swann Lake Aqueduct.” I believe it should say “In relation to”. On this map I do not see it connected.

The Hampden (Noted as Hampton on map) and Mt. Royal Reservoirs.

And this map portion that shows the Johns Hopkins property before it became Lake Clifton, and a race track in the lower right corner. In a few years from this map’s date, a Baltimore County water filtration plant will be built near the track; using ozone filtering technology. (I forget off hand what the date was – maybe 1907?)

And finally, on the map title is HMF v Stamp as the Chief Engineer. I could not find anything about this person until 1873 where he is listed as the contractor to build the Temporary Water Supply, from the Gunpowder to Roland Run, which fed Lake Roland. It consisted of a couple pumps near Meredith Bridge, running some pipes to dump into Roland Run.

The Tiffany Run Reservoir was never built. Lake Montebello was. Many droughts, flooding of the Jones Falls and finally and over polluted Jones Falls required the new, permanent Gunpowder Works to be built – and is still in service today.

Note: This map is too brittle and too large for my scanner.

Swann Lake – Not the Ballet

23 Friday Feb 2018

Posted by Ronald Parks in Baltimore, engineering, HISTORY, water history

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Baltimore, Dams, engineering, HISTORY, Jones Falls, Lake Roland, maps, Monuments, POLITICS, Public Works, Research, water history

When I first started researching the water history of Baltimore, and I came across a map of Swann Lake, I just assumed that it was called Swann Lake because the Mayor at that time was Thomas Swann, who later went on to be the Governor of Maryland. 

Here is the man himself. In the journal I am presently transcribing, I came across this entry:

October 4, 1869: The Committee on Swann Lake submitted the following report: Having examined the minutes of the Board and the records of the office, with the view of ascertaining in what way and by what authority the Lake, so long called Lake Roland received the name of Swann Lake, would respectfully call the attention to the Board the following – That Mr. Charles Manning, Chief Engineer was asked to name the principal stream that supplies the Lake, by which with great propriety the Lake could be known. Under his direction the name of Lake Roland was placed over the door of the stop house and a map of Lake Roland was presented to the Water Board with the general and final report of the Chief Engineer on the completion of the Works. In this manner the lake became known to all our citizens, by a familiar and more appropriate local name. The Board of Water Commissioners, by resolution, posed at a regular meeting on December 26, 1861, approved and adopted what had been done in the premises…to be called Lake Roland. At some subsequent period the name on the door (Roland) was erased and Swann Lake inserted and a patch was made and placed on the map stating the same. In the opinion of the Committee, these changes and defacement were entirely unauthorized and would have been improper even if ordered by the Water Board. The Board has heretofore declared its opinion as to the impropriety of designating any of the public works by the name of an individual citizen, because of his connection with the City Government and your committee sees no reason why this Lake should be made an exception of. These views have long been entertained but have thought it best to defer presenting them until the present time, when by no possibility can it be supposed that you are in any way influenced by personal or political feeling. Ask that the Lake be referenced from this point forward as Lake Roland. Unanimously resolved.

So, one has to wonder – did a political adversary go and change the name from Roland to Swann over the door? And why would the Water Engineers continuously refer to the lake as Swann Lake? Every entry that I have summarized from the 1862-1869 journal notes “The work at Swann Lake…” or as such. Here is what the work at Swann Lake looked like. Even A. Hoen and Co. called it Swann.

Wikipedia has this to say about Thomas Swann – not too good a commentary!

Many believed once slavery was abolished in Maryland, African Americans would begin a mass emigration to a new state. As white soldiers returned from southern battlefields they came home to find that not only were their slaves gone but soil exhaustion was causing tobacco crops in southern Maryland to fail. With a growing number of disaffected white men, Thomas Swann embarked on a campaign of “Redemption” and “restoring to Maryland a white man’s government”. His strategy was built on the platform of entrenching white power and displacing independent African Americans. During this same time an oyster crisis in New England caused the oyster industry in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay to surge. Swann’s problem was that the Bay oyster trade was heavily African American. His solution; use government policy to push African Americans in the bay and replace them with, “White Labor, at reasonable rates wherever needed.” Even more egregious he enacted a law that encouraged white fisherman to harass black fisherman when he signed into law the states first ever “Oyster Code.” “And be it acted, that all owners and masters of canoes, boats, or vessels licensed under this article, being White Men, are hereby constituted officers of this state for the purpose of arresting and taking before any judge or Justice of the Peace, any persons who may be engaged in violating any provisions of this article. Furthermore, all such owners and masters are hereby vested with the power to summon pose comitatus to aid in such arrest.” Even more egregious, any property seized during an “Oyster Code” violation was auctioned off, with one quarter of the proceeds going to the white man who initiated the arrest.

Wow and as Confederate Monuments have been removed in Baltimore, I guess no one thought to remove the entrance of Druid Lake at Swan Drive that has his name emblazoned across the top of the arch!

Druid Lake a.k.a Lake Chapman

17 Friday Nov 2017

Posted by Ronald Parks in engineering, HISTORY, water history

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Baltimore, Dams, Druid Lake, engineering, HISTORY, Jones Falls, Lake Roland, Public Works, water history

From the Water Engineer’s office – drawings and history of Druid Lake. A Google search will give various histories of the lake. This history comes from the actual Water Engineer’s reports to the Mayor at that time:

1863 Druid Lake (Lake Chapman): City authorized construction of lake and reservoirs in Druid Hill Park and the land adjoining. Also authorized to lay pipe from Hampden Reservoir or from the conduit to a reservoir or reservoirs within the park. Heavy rains had caused the Jones Falls water to be muddy, hence the need to construct Druid Lake. Work started on March 7, 1864

Although the writing on this drawing is hard to read, from what I could read it states: 1869, Cross section through [pipes?]. Effluent and Influent [?] Lake Chapman ^ Druid Lake December 2[?] 1869[?] What I like about this is that it is the first drawing that I have seen where Druid Lake was called Lake Chapman.

1867 Druid Lake (Lake Chapman): Completed Lake Chapman, 429,000,000 gallons, capable of holding a supply of water equal to 40 days of consumption. Lake has nominally the same elevation as Hampden Reservoir, but is usually about 5 feet lower.

1868 Druid Lake (Lake Chapman): March 30, Res. No. 111, changed name of Lake Chapman to Druid Lake.

Another hard to decipher drawing: W. Bollman(?). Balto. Jule(?) 1870. Grating, Gate Stands, Stems and Screen for screen well at Druid Lake Reservoir.

1870 Druid Lake: The inside portion of the Druid Lake dam was completed in 1868 except for the remaining top 30 feet of the required elevation, and had remained unfinished during the year 1869. Work on Druid Lake resumed on May 2, 1870. The Druid Lake Park Reservoir is completed and water is first let. Druid Lake has a storage capacity of 493 million gallons, but only 429 million gallons to be available for City use. This equates to 40 days of water consumption which would allow ample time for Lake Roland to settle after the heaviest rains. The extreme water depth at the foot of the dam is to be 65 feet. The extreme water depth at the upper end of the dam is to be 20 feet.

Druid, Mt. royal and Hampden Reservoir were all connected through various series of pipes. In 1898 (for year ending 1897) it is reported that the water conduit from Lake Roland to Hampden Reservoir is a brick conduit, and the water is then delivered from Hampden Reservoir to Druid Lake by means of four 30-inch cast-iron pipes.

Photo of valve vault at embankment.

From the Water Engineer’s report to the Mayor – Hoen lithograph.

Another drawing of the lake. Looking close to the upper left I believe that was the keeper’s cottage. To the right is the High Service Reservoir Pump Station.

The cottage at Druid. 1873. Philip Walsh, contractor.

The stable for the cottage.

Not sure of this drawing from 1902. It is saying that the lake is 118′ deep?? An earlier report puts it at 65′.

Another 1902 drawing.

Looking across Druid Lake in 1925.

Roland Water Tower

24 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by Ronald Parks in Baltimore, engineering, HISTORY, water history

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Baltimore, engineering, FILTRATION, HISTORY, Lake Roland, Montebello, POLITICS, Public Works, water, water history

Received an email – you know the kind – a city resident has a complaint, goes to their City Council Person, goes to the Director of Public Works, goes to my boss – who sends it to me to investigate: The area around the Roland Water Tower is the site of 24/7 drug dealing activity. Shouldn’t this complaint have gone to the police? Being the good employee that I am, I went to investigate. For a 24/7 drug spot, the grounds looked clean and I saw only 2 people, walking their dogs. My mission was to see if there was any available electricity for new lighting? There are already 5 street lights surrounding the property. I could not get inside the tower itself to see if there was electric. I doubt it.

Time for a history lesson: The Tower was built, according to the bronze tablets, between 1904 and 1905. According to my records the contract was awarded to two contractors – one for the steel tower and one for the brick enclosure. Then later, another contractor for the concrete pool and steps.

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The steel stand pipe being built by Tippett and Wood.

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The brick enclosure by John Stack. The steps and pool by the Andrew Co.

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The finished tower.

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As it looked this morning. There is a fence around it, which I was able to go through.

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Pieces of the tower are falling down. This is the purpose of the fence – to keep people out and to keep people away from the falling pieces.

The tower held about 213,000 gallons of water that it received from Druid Lake. The design was by William Fizone, who also designed the Montebello Filters. The pool has been filled in. In 1939 the Water Board turned the property over to the City Comptroller. In 2009 and again in 2011 consultants were hired to figure out what to do with this abandoned tower. It had a couple times been turned over to the Roland Park Community Association, who tried to raise funds to restore it. And it still sits – a magnet for the druggies and dog walkers.

Harper’s Waste Weir

03 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by Ronald Parks in Baltimore, HISTORY, water history

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Baltimore, engineering, FILTRATION, HISTORY, Jones Falls, Lake Roland, Public Works, water, water history

The Jones Falls became nothing more than an open cesspool that emptied into the Inner Harbor in the early 1800s. It was decided to build a reservoir upstream, outside of town and use conduit to carry drinking and fire fighting water to the public.

In 1858, work begins to increase the supply of water from the Jones Falls by building a dam. The reservoir to be created would be called Swann Lake, later to be renamed Lake Roland. A conduit would connect the reservoir to the Mount Royal Reservoir, and the water would flow by gravity through a 3-mile-long elliptical bricked tunnel. A Valve House was installed on top of the conduit and was originally known as the “Harper Waste Weir” (later to be referred to as “The Cross Keys Valve House”); and its construction would be completed in 1860. The Harper Waste Weir was located between Swann Lake and the Influent Gatehouse at the Hampden Reservoir. The Influent Gatehouse to the Hampden Reservoir pipe configuration was such that Swann Lake water could flow to the Mount Royal Reservoir or to the Hampden Reservoir. The Harper Waste Weir structure was one of three stone Greek Revival gatehouses to be built as part of the Baltimore’s City municipal water system along a conduit that would run from Swann Lake to Mount Royal Reservoir. The other two gatehouse structures (construction would be completed in 1862), being the effluent gatehouse at Swann Lake and the influent gatehouse to the Hampden Reservoir.

WasteWeir2

By doing this, the amount of natural water flow down the Jones Falls was impeded and this lack of flow created a worse  situation for Baltimore – the Jones Falls and the Harbor could not be flushed out on a regular basis (except during storms, which caused severe flooding).

WasteWeir

The structure on the left is the original Waste Weir. The wooden portion was built later to hold alum, which was added to the water by hand.

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This building still exists and has recently been added to Baltimore’s list of historic places.

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Odorless Excavating Apparatus

29 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by Ronald Parks in Baltimore, Health, Sewage History

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Baltimore, engineering, FILTRATION, garbage, Health, HISTORY, Jones Falls, Lake Roland, POLITICS, Public Works, sewage, Sewage History, water, water history

Baltimore, situated as she is, with one main water course through her center (Jones Falls), she had plenty of water for the people. Pure, clean drinking water….until people started dumping their sewage into it. Many Health Commissioner’s Reports talk about what to do with the sewage of Baltimore. Contractors were hired to haul it away. Here are a couple HCRs on what happened over a few short years in Baltimore, until a proper system of sewage could be built.

1865 – The withdrawal of a large share of the water flowing in this stream (Jones Falls), by the completion of the lake and storage reservoirs (Lake Roland, originally called Swann Lake), with the extension of the water works in the city, has left too small a portion of water to keep the original course clean if nothing was thrown into it; but to this deficiency of water add its use as a receptacle for every species of offal from factories, foundries, tanneries, stables and dwelling houses, and we are not surprised at its present condition. We have had one of these sources of nuisance carefully examined, and find that not only are most of the privies attached to dwellings on the streets adjoining the Falls drained into it, by means of private sewers, but that wherever a sewer leading to it can be reached, this sewer is connected with privies for drainage purposes.

1873 – The late City Council have distinguished their administration by the passage of an ordinance permitting the use of the “odorless excavating apparatus” for emptying privies in the day time. This is the inauguration of a new era, and destined to prove one of the greatest blessings of the age. As stated in a communication on this subject to the late City Council, your Commissioner holds that a large proportion of the cases of cholera infantum occurring in all large cities during the heated term are to be ascribed to the ancient and vile mode of doing this work, as well as to its transportation through the streets of the city, poisoning the air which is wafted into every open window.

1875 Odorless Apparatus2

1875 Odorless Apparatus1888 – The adoption of a proper system of sewers for the present privy-wells will assist the Health Department in its endeavor to bring the City to a point where the ordinary sanitary condition will be such that epidemics of disease, resulting from or aggravated by filth, could be avoided or reduced to a minimum. The danger is greater than the people realize; the trouble is deep-seated and not to be reached by the Spring ‘cleaning up’ nor even by inspection. In most of the houses of this City there exists a latent power for evil, which is liable when its hour arrives to exert itself to the full of its terrible might.

I don’t believe that this apparatus lasted too long. It is no longer mentioned after the 1876 report.

Montebello Filters History 1

12 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by Ronald Parks in Baltimore, HISTORY

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Baltimore, engineering, FILTRATION, Gunpowder Falls, HISTORY, Jones Falls, Lake Roland, Montebello, water, water history

Before the Montebello Filtration Plant came to be in 1915, Baltimore received its water from various sources. Mostly at the direction of the City Commissioners to form a water company, for fire protection. Wells were sunk and springs directed to fountains. But like every other growing city, Baltimore had its fair share of problems – drought, pollution, pestilence, etc.

In 1854 the Bureau of Water Supply became a Municipal Utility Corporation. 1861 saw Swann Lake (Lake Roland), Hampden Reservoir and the new Mt Royal Reservoir put into service. These received water from the Jones Falls. In 1864 the City started construction of Lake Chapman (Druid Lake). By 1866, Mayor Chapman realized the inadequacy of the Jones Falls, so authorization for the purchase of lands along the Gunpowder Falls began. 1869-70 saw one of the worst droughts in Baltimore history. In 1871 a reservoir at Pimlico was built, but this was still receiving water from the Jones Falls, which was failing. 1873 saw an urgent need for a supplementary water supply.  A temporary pump, pumping station and a 36-inch cast iron discharge water main were constructed for the delivery of the Gunpowder Falls water from Meredith’s Ford Bridge to Roland Run, a tributary of the Jones Falls, above Lake Roland.  The water flow would be forced at a rate of 10 million gallons a day into Roland Run, a distance of 3-1/2 miles. To the dismay of the property owners. This was known as the Temporary Supply.

Original photo

Original photo

A. Hoen litho from  original photo

A. Hoen litho from original photo 1875

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