Across the fence

I remember my first trip off the farm and outside of Atchison County, Kansas. I was probably nine or ten years old and traveling with my Grandpa Nolting, heading west to Colorado. Somewhere, just past the Kansas/Colorado border, in the seemingly endless stretch of open prairie, there stood a huge stock tank being fed by two windmills. In my untraveled curiosity and ignorance I asked grandpa, "Why do they have two windmills?"

Without hesitation grandpa replied, "The wind out here is so strong a single windmill can't handle it."

"Oh" I said, not figuring out until sometime later that he was kidding.

In the early days of settlement and westward expansion, beyond the western banks of the Mississippi and past the Missouri Breaks, farms, ranches, villages and towns staked their claims near live water. The Platte River Valley offered plentiful water, fertile ground and abundant forage and timber. Similarly the Arkansas River, the Red, the Cimarron, Niobrara and other lesser rivers, streams and creeks provided the necessary lifeblood for family, fields and livestock.

As the numbers of settlers increased the availability of land near live surface water decreased and it became necessary, for those who sought to carve a livelihood out of the arid landscape of The Great American Desert, to find water. And it was there, right beneath the ground where they stood. Sometimes as close to the surface as 10 feet, some 30, maybe 50 or 60 feet and others 100, 200, 300 or more. The digging of wells became the number one priority and if water was found, the new landowner might prosper, if not, the claim would likely be abandoned.

Where water lay close to the surface wells would usually be dug by hand, cribbed with planks or stone and water drawn by hand with rope, pulley and bucket. Deeper wells, in the range of 30 to 60 feet were generally augured using manpower or horsepower to turn the augur and pull the loosened soil out and away from the newly dug shaft. Water from these wells was most often drawn by windlass using either manpower or horses. The deepest wells were drilled by either horsepower or steam, lined with iron casing and fitted with simple mechanical pumps to bring the water to the surface. In the absence of any other source of power, pumping by hand was required.

Fortunately, the first self-governing American windmill became commercially available in 1854, invented by a machinist back east by the name of Daniel Halladay. Self-governing meant that the apparatus was designed to maintain a constant rotating speed of the turbine in varying wind speeds, which kept it from flying apart in high winds, certainly a necessary innovation for folks in Nebraska, Kansas and Wyoming. Halladay's invention was utilized and modified by many manufacturers and beginning in the 1860's windmills were being manufactured and distributed extensively on the Great Plains, especially in Texas and particularly by the railroads.

In 1860 the Houston Tap and Brazoria Railway acquired the rights to manufacture a design by James Mitchell called the "Wind Wheel" and used it along its right-of-way to pump water into reservoirs for their steam powered locomotives. The use of windmills in Texas continued to increase as open range became fenced pastures forcing stockmen, who no longer had access to open water, to dig wells and erect windmills to water their cattle and sheep. By 1886 the famous Matador Land and Cattle Company had begun to use windmills for watering their herds. The three-million-acre XIT ranch installed their first windmill in 1887 and by the year 1900 the XIT had 335 windmills in operation, including the world's tallest windmill with a wooden tower of 132 feet. It wasn't until 1888 that steel towers and turbine blades replaced wood and many were reluctant to embrace the change.

Of course the demise of open range and the rise of fenced pasture stripped some of the shine off of the romance of the cowboy. But fences and windmills brought new occupations to ranch work although the fencers and drillers and windmillers were doubtless scorned by the horseback men of the era. Once the fences were built, wells dug and windmills erected a full time windmiller was hired to make the rounds, checking and repairing as needed. The range rider became the windmill maintenance man whose responsibilities now included the twice-weekly chore of climbing the tower and pouring grease over the gears. Perhaps even more humiliating was the fact that the range rider not only was required to carry fencing pliers but also had to strap a can of grease to his saddle. Finally, in 1912 windmill technology had advanced to the point that someone had envisioned enclosing the gears in a sealed casing that needed to be filled with oil only once a year.

By 1928 windmill manufacturing had reached its peak and 99,050 units were produced that year, 26,000 of which were exported to other countries and more than 36,000 sold in Texas alone. However, from the outset of windmill manufacturing in the United States, the primary use for windmills was for irrigation. With the advent of the windmill, vegetable farmers and others who produced crops on small acreages, could significantly boost production by being able to provide a controlled application of abundant water and for the stockman and the homesteader, windmills turned otherwise uninhabitable regions into viable, productive land.

While Texas lays claim to being the largest user of windmills in the United States, the image of a windmill, whether in photo, watercolor or oils is the image of Nebraska. Most every homesteader that survived during the cycles of drought owes their success, in part, to the windmill. Hundreds of windmills across the expansive grasslands of Nebraska's sand hills insure that there is sufficient water for livestock that ranges for miles and miles between tanks. And still today, thousands of households across the state depend on the windmill to provide their everyday need of water. And perhaps, more than any other region of The Great Plains, Nebraska is known for its thousands of homemade windmills.

In the later years of the 1890's, Erwin Hinckley Barbour, geologist, paleontologist and head of the Department of Geology, University of Nebraska toured the plains of Nebraska and documented the widespread use of homemade windmills. His 1899 report to the U.S. Department of Interior contains his extensive narrative and includes many remarkable photos of windmills not seen today. Those homemade windmills included wooden towers, wooden bladed turbines on platforms in treetops, box-like contraptions with paddlewheels to catch the wind, merry-go-round windmills that were vertical blades pivoting on a central axis and others of unique and curious design. Barbour reported that most all of the homemade windmills were constructed of used lumber, old gears and chain, scraps of tin, pipe, rods, packing crates and other discarded material. The cost was often no more than the cost of free labor to assemble the parts. The ingenuity, and resourcefulness of those who built these windmills was remarkable. And I wonder, are there any still around or have they all be torn down and discarded?

Our windmill, back in northeast Kansas was an AeroMotor, steel tower, steel blades and tail and required an annual trip to the top to fill the reservoir with oil. My first time up the tower was done with extreme caution and trepidation but once on top, the view of my surrounding world was breathtaking. I was a sailor atop the mast of a great ship. I was a mountaineer, standing in awe of the view from above the clouds.

"Quit piddlin' around up there," Dad hollered from the ground below. "Pop that cover open and pour in the oil."

Boyhood daydreams were often shattered by the harsh reality of chores needing done.

I remember the cast iron pump centered among the four steel legs of the tower. The handle was worn smooth from the grip of hands and daily chores of filling the stock tank, watering the horses, filling the pails for chickens, and baths and dishes. I remember the frustration of trying to fill the tank when the cattle were drinking faster than I could pump. I remember using that pump when I was so small that I had to reach my arms over my head to hang on to the handle with the up-stroke.

In my grandpa's later years he got the notion that he needed to sell the windmills on the homestead and on our old place. "Would you want one?" he asked.

"Sure," I said. But at the time I had no way to haul it and no place to put it. Grandpa was too impatient to wait.

Oh, by the way Grandpa, maybe you can see it from up there. There's a ranch headquarters on the Niobrara River, here in Nebraska that has seven windmills on the hill above the corrals. You wouldn't believe how the wind blows out here.

M. Timothy Nolting is an award winning Nebraska columnist. His first book, containing 50 selected columns from the past six years, Volume I of "101 Yesterdays" will be available soon. To order contact Tim at [email protected]