The first city water system was on Canada Island in a modest brick structure clinging to the side of the basalt bank. It was built a year before the great fire of 1889 and it was critical to the outcome of that terrible conflagration. The water system was state-of-the-art for its time, including pumps, piping and hydrants for emergencies. Before this system, the city water source was a hand pump near the river's edge. Because the water table at the city's elevation, the pump only reached down into an cribbed area where river water settled.  Locals would have to bring barrels and buckets to fill at the pump. 

The water works building on Canada Island, then called Crystal Island, was said to have state of the art pumps for fire fighting, but the system wasn't, or couldn't be, used during the great fire. Read about the waterworks and it's builder, Rolla Jones, in Monday's Then and Now column in The Spokesman-Review. 

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