The water system of
Coleman began as a personal affair. In the
early days, the small dam on Hords Creek
east of town was the supply, the water being
distributed over town in barrels. Each
man’s barrel was equipped with a white flag
which he raised when he wanted water.
It sold for 10 cents per barrel. In
1893, a contract was given to Robert
Kerchenel to supply the town with water,
being pumped from Hords Creek. By
1895, however, the city had taken over the
water system and a new system was being
installed. It was to consist of a
filter gallery and well in the bed of Hords
Creek at the east end of Liveoak; a power
house with boiler, pump and connections
erected on the bank of Hords Creek; a
reservoir of approximately 500,000 gallons
capacity to be built on the hill at the west
end of Liveoak Street; and a distributing
system consisting of 4800 feet of 8 inch
cast iron water mains, 3048 feet of 6 inch
pipe, 6780 feet of 4 inch pipe, and 25 fire
hydrants. This system became outmoded
and a proposal was made to build a
lake. That proposal caused wide and
violent discussion, the opponents saying
that Coleman would never need that much
water. The bond issue passed and the
lake was built ... being the Coleman City
Lake, later called the old Coleman Lake and
renamed Memory Lake in 1976. In 1925
Lake Scarborough was built, followed by
Hords Creek Lake in 1948 and Lake Coleman in
1966. Today, Coleman and much of the
county, is supplied with water from Lake
Coleman (40,000 acre feet) and Hords Creek
Lake (9,000 acre feet), with Lake
Scarborough being held in reserve. In
1980, the water supply was delivered by a
looped system, had 2 to 21 inch mains with
an average pressure of 70 psig; maximum
system capacity was 6,100,000 gallons per
day with 3,500,000 being the maximum daily
use. The following articles follows
the developement of Coleman's water supply
over the years and its linked to each other,
or can be seen as individual articles.
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