Postcard
(#4)

The World's Largest
HAND-DUG WELL
1887 - 1987
An Engineering Marvel of the 1800s

For the story behind the world's largest hand-dug well, turn back the 
pages of history to 1885, when the railroads were driving forward to 
serve the booming prairie towns such as Greenburg. The Rock Island 
and the Santa Fe Railroads were racing to be first into Greenburg. 
In 1885, the city government granted a franchise for a waterworks 
system, to cost approimately $45,000.00, a huge sum in those days.

With Jack Wheeler of Stafford county as supervisor, the Santa Fe 
put down the well, hoping to use it as a source of water for its trains 
also. But the Rock Island won the rail laying race and the Santa Fe 
terminated its construction at the east Kiowa County line. The well 
was completed in 1887, a gigantic excavation, 32 feet in diameter 
and 109 feet deep, cased with a wall of native stone to prevent caving 
in. The stone was hauled 12 miles from the Medicine River, over roads 
that were little better than cattle trails.

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