An Old Country Spring House

Today's picture features an old spring house in rural Washington County, Virginia. Although they are rarely used these days, there are plenty of spring houses still standing all across rural America.

In times past, whenever a family purchased land (or had some granted to them), if at all possible they chose a site near a spring to build their home. Municipal water supplies didn't exist out in the country so a continually-wet spring was worth a small fortune to the landowner. In fact, countless family feuds and broken friendships have resulted over nothing more than ownership or usage rights to a good spring.

But springs served another important purpose for families in addition to being reliable sources of cool, clear drinking water: they also served as the family's "refrigerator". Typically, a small, one-room building was laid up out of rock over the spring, making sure to leave a way for the water to exit through a pipe or under the bottom of one of the walls. Then, enough soil and rocks were removed from the bottom of the "spring house" to create a shallow pool of cool spring water.

Crocks or bottles filled with milk, butter and other perishables were stored neck-deep in the cool water in order to keep them from spoiling. The walls would usually be lined with shelf after shelf of canned goods (the mason jar variety), potatoes and other food items.

There would usually be a bucket or two kept in the spring house for carrying water into the home for drinking, cooking, cleaning and bathing. And no spring house was complete without the requisite "dipper" which was used to grab a quick drink of cool water without having to go inside the house. A stop by the spring house for a refreshing drink was usually the first priority after a long, hard day of working out in the fields.

But times have changed. Municipal water mains now run through most communities in rural America, and it's quite rare indeed to find a house without a working refrigerator in the kitchen. The country spring house is of little use now that we have water on tap along with modern, affordable refrigerator-freezers equipped with through-the-door ice and water dispensers.

But many of these old structures still stand over their long-abandoned springs, and if you close your eyes you can almost hear the sound of a sweaty child gasping for breath between gulps from a well-used dipper.

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