Fire Hydrants

Last Sunday in Baltimore there was a large water main break. On Monday I had to walk to the library so I thought I'd walk by the affected area to see what it was all about. This is one of the hydrants the workmen opened, probably to clear silt out of the lines. This prompted me to look up the history of fire hydrants.

There is no clear inventor of the fire hydrant. For the most part, before they were invented people kept large vessels filled with water around. Cisterns were common in America even after hydrants had been around for 60 years or so. Firemen were helped by the introduction of municipal water supplies, which were simply buried wooden pipes. When they needed water, the firemen would dig up the street and punch a hole in the water main. Then they could pump out what they needed. After it was finished they sealed the hole with a "fire plug". This changed a bit when a large part of London was destroyed in an 1666 fire. The city added pre-drilled holes and plugs for easier access, and this led to the eventual development of hydrants. In America the hydrants we know of today were developed in the early 1800s. With innovations made just before the Civil War, hydrants of the 1860s looked very much like they do today.


Sources:

A Brief History of the Hydrant

The Fire Hydrant by Curt Wohleber