Log Discovery Points to Early Water System

The pipe is the biggest, and perhaps oldest, piece of that water system found.

The Loudoun Museum displays a two-foot-long log pipe thought to have been installed between 1820 and 1840. Town maintenance crews found that pipe during sewer renovations in the summer of 1977.

The museum log is held together by iron pieces. But the pipe found on Cook's property is made entirely of wood, which means it could be evidence of the town's first attempt to install a water system.

Metal bands later were added to log pipes to help protect them from splitting under water pressure, Mellott said.

The town utility staff marveled at the woodwork.

"It wasn't at all what I expected," said John Creamer, a 15-year employee in the utility division. "I was looking for the one with the brass."

Mellott and his staff are hoping to preserve the log with an acrylic polymer recommended by Tracy Coffing, an architectural conservator.

"If it's properly applied, it should not change the natural appearance of the color of the wood," said Coffing, who owns the Nightingale Group, a Leesburg consulting firm that works on building restoration and preservation projects.

The log sits on two wooden stumps and is tucked away in an empty corridor of the utility maintenance building. The building houses other artifacts, including two six-inch cast-iron pipes from 1908.

The log pipe was displayed at Town Hall during Leesburg's 250th anniversary celebration last month. Other than that, it hasn't received much public viewing.

Officials at the Loudoun Museum said they have no room to display the log but plan to expand their storage and exhibit space.

Once the museum expands, "one of the first things we'd love to have is that piece of water pipe," said Karen Quanbeck, the museum's executive director.

Mellott is continuing his research and has gotten as close to the present as the Town Council minutes from the 1970s.

Among his findings, he learned that before 1866 each council member was responsible for utilities maintenance on certain streets.

In April 1866, the council hired the first superintendent for the water system. The first major overhaul of the system occurred with the installation of cast-iron pipes in 1906 and 1907.

In the 1960s, as the town population grew, officials stopped using the springs and constructed a reservoir.

"It got to the point where it wasn't producing enough water for the town," Mellott said.