HISTORY OF HEGINS TOWNSHIP

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History of the Hegins Water Company, Inc.

During the 19th century the residents of Hegins Township were solely dependent upon springs and wells for domestic and commercial water supply.  Some farms and residences were supplied with water through pipes from springs at higher elevations affording a gravity flow, but these were rare.  One such instance was the village of Fountain.  During the last quarter of the 19th century William A. Stutzman, the proprietor of the hotel and post office in that village, conveyed water from a spring on the Kleiner Kopf, through popes of chestnut wood, to his business establishment.  Other residents of the village, all relatives of William A. Stutzman, were permitted to use the system.  This source of supply is still functioning although the wooden mains have since been replaced.

In the first decade of the 20th century, a group of citizens, including John Heckert, constructed a small spring-fed reservior on the Mahantongo Mountain and installed a 4" cast iron main therefrom to the village of Valley View.  This source was not sufficient, especially during the dry seasons, to fulfill the needs of the consumers and a more abundant supply was urgently the purpose of supplying water to the residents of the township.  On September 11, 1909, N. D. Yoder, F. P. Barnd, MD, and Valentine Quigel, of Hegins; Joseph W. Moyer, Esq., and W. E. Harrington, of Pottsville; and Edward A. Shollenberger, of Hamburg, PA., applied to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for a charter of incorporation of the Hegins Water Company.  The total authorized capital was $10,000.00, representing 20 shares, was paid when the application was filed.  The corporate charter was approved by the Governor of PA on November 30, 1909 and duly recorded in the Recorder of Deeds Office of Schuylkill County on December 3, 1909.  Its corporate existence was fixed at 999 years.

The Articles of Incorporation provided that the water supply for the system was to originate from artesian wells on a tract of land purchased from N. D. Yoder on the north side of Bear Mountain near the road leading from Hegins to Good Spring, situate one mile south of the village of Hegins.  It is evident that this new utility was originally intended to supply only the village of Hegins since Valley View already had a water supply system.  Probably because of the inadequacy of the latter system, the incorporaters of the Hegins Water Company, Inc., decided to abandon the artesian well project and to build instead a reservoir on the Bear (Broad) Mountain designed to supply both villages.  In 1910 a hand excavated 50,000 gallon reservoir was constructed on the site at an elevation of 950 feet above sea level.  This facility was fed partially by a spring and by pumping from a spring and well at the foot of the mountain.  Pipes were laid in trenches, excavated by hand, from the reservoir through and to the villages of Valley View and Hegins, from 1910 through 1911.

Laborers of Italian descent were imported by the incorporators to perform the labor, supplemented by local help.  Each laborer was required to dig two shovel lengths or ten feet of trench per day, 30 inches wide and 36 to 40 inches deep.  The importees were housed in a small shanty near the site of the reservoir.  It is reported that a fight developed one evening in the shanty and one of the laborers was killed resulting in a court trial and the conviction of the guilty individual.

As the villages grew and new homes were constructed, the demand for additional water far exceeded the available supply and in 1925, a one million gallon reservoir was constructed adjacent to the then existing reservoir.  In 1932 a 500,000 gallon impounding reservoir was constructed along Spruce Run at the northern foot of the Bear Mountain to supply the two main reservoirs.

Local ownership and operation of the company continued until October 31, 1928, when it was acquired by National Water Works Corp. which was reorganized in 1931 and the property and assets of the water company was acquired by Delaware Valley Utilities Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of American Water Works, Inc.  The new owner continued to improve the water supply and distribution systems, extended mains and service as the demands for water increased with the growth of the community.

The Hegins Water Company, through its officers and directors, John H. Ware, Jr., President L. J. Ostermayer, Secretary, L. T. Reinicker, J. J. Barr and E. O. Horner, were authorized to negotiate the sale of the water company and its physical assets to the Township of Hegins or to a municipal authority to be organized by the Township of Hegins. The sale was formally consummated on September 17, 1940 and the Hegins Water Company, after a brief life of 31 years, the ownership then became vested in the Hegins Township Authority.

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