dallashistory

Record Crossing Pump Station (1895) and spillway (1865) on the Elm Fork of the Trinity River, corner of Record Crossing and Riverside, Dallas, Texas



Turtle Creek Pump Station (1909), now the Sammons Center for the Arts, 3630 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas, Texas









A Holly Manufacturing Co. "Quadruplex" pumping engine as installed in Record Crossing Pump Station (1893, top left) and a Holly "Gaskill" Pumping Engine as installed in Turtle Creek Pump Station (1893, bottom right)

White Rock Pumping Station, Dallas, TX (1911)



Bachman Pump Station, 2625 Shorecrest Drive, Dallas, Texas



Oak Cliff Pumping Station (under the sign, 1913), now Oak Farms Dairy (1937-), 1114 N Lancaster Ave., Dallas, Texas



Cadiz Pump Station (1915), 411 Cadiz St. (corner of Cadiz and Industrial Blvd.), Dallas, Texas

Fantastic photos!
Thanks for sharing with us.

Jim, those are fabulous photos. Thanks for sharing. Isn't this fabulous to be able to really see some of our passions?! So glad you posted.

Those pictures are lovely, James It has been many years since I last was near the Bachman station, but do remember it now. And how wonderful to see examples of these old structures being saved and serving in new capacities.

We are spoiled on this forum but I'm enjoying every moment. Keep your images coming, ya'll!

Thanks again, James,
Holly

The second I showed Mike the picture of the Bachman pump station he said: "We use to go fishing there." Turns out it was from the dam behind the station.

Sharon Marsalis wrote:The second I showed Mike the picture of the Bachman pump station he said: "We use to go fishing there." Turns out it was from the dam behind the station.

First of all, thank you everyone for your kind words.

Most of the stations I pretty much understand, but Bachman I do not. According to Table 1 in the 1924 Report on the City of Dallas by the National Board of Fire Underwriters, Bachmann Pumping Station had one DeLaval centrifugal pump driven by an electric motor. However, the section on the station on page 2 states:

Built in 1910 on Elm Fork, near Bachmann Reservoir. For equipment see Table 1. Suction and discharge pipes are 24-inch, the former 960 feet long with a maximum lift of 17 feet and the latter a short line to the conduit, through which the supply is delivered either to Bachmann reservoir or to the basins at Turtle creek, depending on the storage in the reservoir and the turbidity of the river water. Station is a small area, frame iron-clad, unexposed building with dirt floor and pump in a concrete pit.

The present imposing brick building does not match the underlined part above! Yet, it would be hard to be believe they would build a steam pumping station as late as after 1924; an electric or diesel plant would not need the brick smoke stack that is there today. Maybe a series of Sanborn insurance maps of the area would help make sense of it all; Sanborn maps detailed these stations well because of the fire protection they provided.

Would also like to look at a Sanborn map of the 1920s of Cadez station. Those impressive Wortington internal combution engine pumps are not original; they replaced the steam plant at some point, leaving only the old steam pump gauge board behind:



While it is a sewage pumping station and not a water pumping station, a Sanborn map may describe what the original equipment was. The plant manager and myself briefly harbored the thought of going below the main deck and seeing if any of the original pumping machinery may still be down there, but no-one to do a "hole watch" on top along with the prospect of finding rusted out steps and decks, rats and snakes changed our minds for the better.

Great pics and info too. Sure brings back a lot of fond memories. Keep up the good work

I had posted about this before on the old board, but now I can "show and tell" at the same time.

Here is a Sanborn map for Turtle Creek Pumping Station from 1909, superimposed on top of a Google Image of the Sammons Center for the Arts. The three large squares in what is now the performing hall show where the station's three Casey Hedges steam boilers were located. The two small black dots in what is now the office/conference room area were the two wells for the Todd vertical triple expansion engine (at rear) and the Gaskill compound engine engine. (The DeLaval steam turbine was installed in 1920, and not shown on this 1921 drawing.)



The smokestack is the large black dot where the dumpster is now located; the smokestack along with the west wall and a portion of the south wall of the pumping station were demolished to make way for the expansion of Harry Hines Blvd. leaving the station in it's current configuration.

Here is the Sanborn map of 1913 for Oak Cliff Pumping Station overlaid on a Google Earth image of Oak Farms Dairy. The building under the Oak Farms sign, the present day smokestack, and the large round tank are all from the original pump station; the Oak Cliff icehouse that the Dairy was a spinoff from is below the edge of this image; where the present day loading docks are located:



Once again, the four black dots are the four steam pumps, the two black squares on the right side of the building are the boilers; a wall with a rolling metal door seperated them.

You didn't want coal dust and ash from the boilers to get into the moving parts of the pumps, so the boiler rooms and engine rooms are usually seperated. Here is the boiler room side of Cadiz Pumping Station; notice how the ceiling appears to be darker than the engine room side shown above from years of dust of smoke. The small arched door on the left is where the exhaust duct from the smokestack once entered the boiler room:



It was the plant manger at Cadiz that told me that "a steam pump was on display" at the pumping station in Waco. A bit of an understatement; with the execption of the boilers having been scrapped; the station is intact:



Coal was hauled in by truck, and unloaded into the station through these doors:



The boiler room is the left in this picture, the engine room is the right. What looks like an insulated steam pipe in the boiler room area is in fact the air conditioning duct for the offices that replaced them. You can just see the steam pumping engines inside through the open door; this was my first up-close view of the station, and you could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw the engines and what I thought was the boilers intact!



And here folks is the engine room, with it's Allis Chamlers cross-compound pumping engines still in place. An engine room needs a crane for handling large parts, and you can see the overhead crane in this picture. That high ceiling and vent at the top let the heat rise up and away from engines; still it must have been hot work on a hot summer's day:



The steps in the foreground lead to the tiny electric power pumps that replaced them:




Please watch your step when getting off the tour bus. We hope you enjoyed your tour, tell your friends, and have a nice day!

James,

Thanks for the photos and tour. Despite my prior engineering background, I never knew I had an interest in this subject before you joined us. It's always a pleasure to read your posts, and now we have the improved capability to see the pictures with the text. Keep up the good work.

Best,
adam

Excellent photos! I'm starting to think that this is a superior board! Forget "cut & paste" we can post it all right here! No archives though

"Please watch your step when getting off the tour bus. We hope you enjoyed your tour, tell your friends, and have a nice day!" - James
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Thanks very much for your descriptions and photos of what is not only your hobby, but also a valuable historical collection of information on the steam powered pumps/engines.

I saw the name Holley in one of your items. His is the name of a prestigious ASME award. I also thought that perhaps his name (and later a mfg. firm) may have been connected to the Holley carburetors, but didn't find info to confirm that.

I did enjoy your tour and appreciate your interests and contributions.

Fred

Fred Ragsdale wrote:I saw the name Holley in one of your items. His is the name of a prestigious ASME award. I also thought that perhaps his name (and later a mfg. firm) may have been connected to the Holley carburetors, but didn't find info to confirm that.

I did enjoy your tour and appreciate your interests and contributions.

Fred

Thanks, Fred. Actually, the name is "Holly". His full name was Birdsall Holly, and he was the inventor of the once-famous "Holly System of Water Supply and Fire Protection for Cities and Villages." The Holly Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1859, its first plant being located in Lockport, New York. In 1902, the entire factory was moved to Buffalo in consolidation with The Snow Steam Pump Works. Turtle Creek Pumping Station had a Holly "Gaskill" compound pumping engine installed, as illustrated above.

By 1897, the company was building the Holly vertical triple-expansion flywheel pumping engine. This attained immediate popularity because of its decreased initial cost, increased steam economy, and small space requirements. The Snow Steam Pump Works later became part of the Worthington Corporation, as illustrated by this nameplate on the Worthington-Snow pumping engine in McNeill Pumping Station in Shreveport:




I just found this ad for "Reynolds" vertical triple expansion pumping engines built by the William Tod Company:



Notice the (2) next to the City of Dallas. A Tod 21 x 40 x 60 x 23¾ x 36 vertical triple expansion double acting pumping engine built in 1909 and rated at 10-12 MGD at 29-33 RPM was installed in Turtle Creek Pump Station in the new pumphouse in 1909. A Tod 26 x 48 x 72 x 31 7/8 x 42 vertical triple expansion single acting pumping engine built in 1912 with a rated capacity of 15-20 MGD at 24-32 RPM was installed in White Rock Pumping Station in 1911. Both have since been scrapped.

(The National Board of Fire Underwriters; 1924 Report lists the builder of both engines as "Todd", but the above ad confirms this is a miss-spelling.)

Edwin Reynolds originally worked for the E.P. Allis Co., which later became Allis-Chamlers. Hence, the Tod pumping engines were called "Reynolds pumping engines". At least four Allis vertical triple expansion pumping engines survive; here is a nice study of one in the Chestnut Hills Pumping Station in Boston, MA. The "Reynolds" pumping engines in the two Dallas stations would have resembled it:





Finally, to bring closure to all of this, Allis-Chamlers was also the builder of the steam pumps in Waco Pumping station, as shown above:



The one in Shreveport looks very similiar.

Thanks for the tour---very informative about a subject that I have known next to nothing about and took for granted. Keep o educating us.

Could someone please move this one to the Technological History forum. Many thanks in advance.