100 YEARS AGO IN THE SARATOGIAN
Saturday, April 13, 1918. Saratoga Springs city employees spend the wee hours of this morning searching for the site of a water main break detected at 2 a.m., The Saratogian reports.
The first sign that something is wrong comes when “the gauge of the pumping station of the city water works showed a decrease in the water pressure of twenty pounds, which indicated that there had been a big break in one of the mains.”
Public works commissioner George W. Ainsworth is quickly appraised of the situation and wakes up fire chief Elias J. Shadwick and every city worker he can find, as well as private-sector workers already on the streets.
“Even the drivers of the bakery delivery wagons were requested to notify the department if they discovered a break anywhere on their routes,” a reporter writes, “However, all of the efforts proved unavailing in spite of the fact that nearly every inch of the city streets was gone over.”
Finally, at 7 a.m., Hiram C. Todd of 46 Circular Street calls into report “a bad break in the water main in front of his home. Upon investigation it was discovered that the street bed had been ‘heaved up’ for a distance of nearly a hundred feet when the water broke through.”
Ainsworth estimates that repairs to the eight-inch pipe will take at least two days. A few hours later, another main breaks on North Street. The Spa City has been plagued by water main breaks in recent weeks, blamed by the commissioner on thawing after an extremely cold winter.
Letters From the Boys
Saratoga County families are sharing accounts from loved ones in the 105th U.S. Infantry of the recent livefire barrage exercises near Camp Wadsworth in Spartanburg SC. The former National Guard troops of Company L are in the last stages of training before their likely deployment to the western front in Europe.
“We just came back from the range where we had one of the greatest experiences in our history,” writes D. A. Moriarty, who reports proudly that not a man in the company was injured in the exercise. He’s just of proud of the fact that the company marched back to camp over 28 miles in only six hours, forty-eight minutes, “which is a record which has never been equaled in the army.”
Edwin L. Farrington writes that the march took a total of ten hours, including rest breaks. Live shells “whistle some when they go over your head,” he adds, “but they had them timed to burst about 50 feet in front of us, so you can imagine the fun we had.”