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Solair Recreation League - |
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Solair Recreation League - |
A Look back in time ...
WATER? LIGHT AND POWER? SANITARY FACILITIES?
Text from 1967
All most necessary and so taken for granted were not always what they are today. The first water supply was the old sink and hand pump out in front of the Lodge, brought in by Florence in her car. The source of the water was the brown water from the pond that many refuse to even swim in now. The first light were, of course, lanterns and lamps. The first toilet was really something, details given by Florence in her picturesque manner. Near Capt. Green’s cabin grew three trees from a common root, large enough apart to hold a pail in an upright position. So – in went the pail… Willard cut a hole in a board and there was the seat. For privacy, Florence nailed a piece of canvas around the three trees overlapping like a tent flap. Can’t you just imagine crawling in there each morning? The janitorial services necessary at the end of each weekend were performed by Florence and her daughter, Olive, who thrust a pole under the handle of the pail and carried it down back and dug a hole. After a bit of washing, all was set for the next weekend. The next season, 1938, one tree had fallen so a similar set-up was made nearer the Lodge. After the Lodge and stairway were completed, a slight improvement was made – a chemical toilet was put under the stairway. The janitor services were supposed to be shared week-by-week by all the male members, but it was the same of duties being done today, some do and some don’t so the task falls on a few. After the camp started up again in ’46, the building we call “Grand Central” was built – water supply for it being a barrel in the back. After each flushing, the member using it was supposed to pump a pail of water and pour it into the barrel ready for the next. But, as one might expect, Al usually had to do it. After a while he got tired of it and at his own expense, installed a ram to pump the brook water up to the barrel. The members liked this innovation so well, they reimbursed Al. This was used in this fashion until the advent of electricity, first supplying pond water – later well water.
As the camp spread, the members on the north-west end began to call for a toilet in their locality so ‘Penn Station’ was built with two barrels in back to hold the water pumped from the pond. First a gasoline pump, later on an electrical one was installed where now we are filling, to service this area. In 1962, the larger block was built (by Herbie and his son). In 1964, it was winterized by putting the water pipe underground, putting in a gas heater and a hot water tank. Really coming up in the world, huh? In the fall of 1965 and spring of 1966, the Red House on Fox Hollow Drive (now brown) was built, a smaller edition but with all the facilities of the White House.
The outhouses were a somewhat recent addition – to provide facilities for those who began coming after the water was shut off in October and for early spring. Now they are used only in emergencies, as when power is off. Next time you have to use the emergency facilities, don’t gripe – just think of Florence’s early invention!
It was in 1957 (July) that the betterment of the water supply came about when an artesian well was driven in back of the Canteen. Pat, in her Solairama, had a few words that express how welcome that was, “No more rationing, no more dry glugs from inside that good?, old hand pump. No more clanging cans in the back of Al’s truck and no more 50 cent purchase of crank case oil as an ‘in’ to 50 gallons of water.” Even the hand pump on a clear artesian well was heavenly after the water situation as described above. With the coming of electricity, a submersible pump was, eventually, installed. That meant year-round water for the showers and two faucets where members could draw their clear water instead of pumping. In time it was carried into the kitchen, then to the sinks and the toilet buildings – the pond water still being used for flushing. With the hot and cold showers we no longer had to use the outside showers, which were fine on a hot day if you were one of the first to use them in the afternoon. The water was warmed by the sun on two barrels laid on the roof of the Canteen. After the supply of sun warmed water was used or on sunless days, the water was COLD, straight from the pond.
In July 1962, a water committee was set up, a pressure tank installed, the well water carried to all facilities and to all lot sites paying a yearly fee of $10.00 to underwrite expenses. Until then some lot sites close to the toilet facilities could have pond water at their sites but had to go the faucet at the steambath for eater for cooking and drinking. How good it was to have good, white water at the sink even though it was only cold water. It was in the late fall of 1964 that the water pipe to the then almost new cement block bath was put underground so the facilities could be used in winter.
In the fall of 1965 additional water and toilet facilities were started – a second artesian well being driven, a new house built almost single-handed by our Al and in the spring toilets, pressure tank and water heater were installed. In the fall electric heaters were added, ready for the day when we need that service opened year round.
This story of electricity and toilet facilities are all bound together in the report of development – in the early days not much connection. Electricity means light and power. Let’s take the light first, in here, meaning, as I’ve stated before – lamps and lanterns. Many were, apparently, quite satisfied with the dim light. To us in the days of bright lights the lamps would only furnish a romantic (if slightly smelly) light – something to listen to soft music by. When some started agitating for electricity and had checked with the Connecticut Light and Power Co., discovering that the cost was to be $2100 and fifteen customers had to be guaranteed, they had to work hard to find the required number to raise that amount. It was June, 1957 that they first began to look into the matter. It was just a year later that they succeeded in getting seven members, plus five camp outlets that allowed them to go ahead. The money was raised during 1957 and 1958 by Ken selling stock. After many problems, which included getting someone to cut brush and fell trees from the right-of-way from Brickyard Road over the hill and through the woods to the end of the pond and up the road to the center of camp, the poles were set in the fall of 1958, the wires in the spring of 1959. According to Red – he came into camp one weekend and said to Al, “The wires are hot.” Al did not believe it as he had no notification from the C.L. & P. Co. But, according to Red some FOOL connected them at his cabin and they had light. When Al saw that, he rushed to his cabin and came back with a toaster and percolator. They all sat down to coffee and cinnamon toast, prepared by electricity in Solair – then down to the Canteen to turn off the gas lights and on the electric. No more dark corners – as Pat described in thanking Alfred and Hazel for the new lamp they had given for the Lodge Room, “We night owls enjoy not having to sit in murky corners.”
It was several years before there was any outside lighting other than the flood lights on the front and rear of the Canteen. In 1962 or 63 a string of lights was given and strung up across the rear of the beach, the next year a few street lights as far as Red’s. Over the next two years Dave and Dick extended the lights up and down the streets and as Fox Hollow Road developed, the lights went that-a-way, too.
Our beginnings... formation (1934-1937 thru 1957)
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