Fountain at Whiting Street Reservoir
There is a concrete canal from both the control house and from the emergency spillway. They meet in the brush and then go the east where we just were. The two pipes from the control house are deep under ground. It leads to its surface point in one of these channels. There was an aerator with a fountain on the grass near this point. (LOCATION) It was put in in 1909 as a help to kill certain bacteria. Oxygen in water does help it taste better. Some parts of the aerator are still visible if one looks carefully. A 1906 sluiceway joins the fountain to the Intake. Also in 1906 a pipeline was added that could carry the water directly from the reservoir to downtown. This pipeline was used for a few months that summer.
The cross country course around the reservoir was used by high school runners from 1970 to 2015. It was renamed in honor of Daniel Lengieza – the coach of Holyoke Catholic High School cross country and track for 52 years – in 2018. Notice the plaque in his honor.
Notice that most of the trees around you are pine. These were mostly planted in the 1930s are WPA projects. Deciduous trees were removed in 1937 around the Whiting Street Reservoir since since leaves had to be raked out of the reservoirs, sluiceways, fountain, and brooks to keep the water from developing germs or a bad taste. Note that the pine trees were planted too close together and thus never developed nice crowns. As a result of the New England Hurricane of 1938, 1000 young pine trees were uprooted. The hurricane did drop 12 inches in one hour so this was to be expected.
This grassy area in front of the dam was also the location of an old barn and a shed, They are long gone but it would be interesting to determine if they were used by Whiting Street himself.
