1935 map showing the location of Southern Pacific Railroad tanker car holding water (green arrow), the Depot, and Vail’s first school (red arrow). Vail Preservation Society Archives.
Our stories, local history, lore, and special places help us connect to each other, find our way in a changing world, and understand the place we live and the people whose lives and intentions shaped it. With the support of Arizona Humanities, The Vail Voice, and building on the 2018 Voices of Vail documentary film, the Vail Preservation Society is working with 70 wonderful students, and staff at Old Vail Middle School, to create stories and art that explores the meaning of home in Vail. These middle school students are placemakers: storytellers and artists who share our past and inspire our future.
Water is the Key by Isabelle Burhans
Water is critical to all life; all things must have drinkable water to survive. Humans use water for many things such as cooking, cleaning, bathing, drinking and swimming. What happens when we don’t have that water?
In Vail, a small town in Arizona, water was hard to get because this was the desert. People could access water from creeks and streams. They would cleanse the dirty water with strainers and old clothes. After the dam was built in Cienega Creek in 1911, the Leon family did just that. The children would pull a wagon full of water barrels to Rancho del Lago. When they got to Rancho del Lago, they filled the barrels up with the water that came out of a pipe from the dam. When all of the barrels were full, the children hauled the water back to their house and then strained it to get out the tadpoles, fish and algae.
Rancho de Lago had squatters – people living on the ranch property because of its almost endless supply of water. In fact, Vail’s
Water in Cienega Creek in 2018 flows past the remains of the 1911 Rancho del Lago dam. Vail Preservation Archives.
first school and Rancho del Lago were the only places in Vail that had running water. The school had a hose hooked up to a railroad tanker car. The Southern Pacific Railroad Company left a tanker car full of water next to the tracks because the steam engine needed water too. Since the school was so close to the railroad, Southern Pacific let the school – and other Vail residents – use their water. When a week or so would pass, Southern Pacific Railroad would swap out the empty or almost empty tanker car with a full one.
If people couldn’t get water from creeks, they would lower their children into “Soon-To-Be-Wells;” the children would dig the dirt out bucket by bucket in hope of finding water. Sometimes they would not find any water and have to start over again in a different spot. If people didn’t want to dig a well or get water from a stream, they could collect rainwater. Although it may take time and you won’t know how much water you will get, it works – if you are patient.
In most families, you would only get to bathe once a week in the same water your family bathed with. The last person to bathe always had the coldest water. Want hot water? People would put water barrels painted black on their roofs; the sun made the water warm and you could take a hot shower – but only for so long! All people originate from somewhere. People came to Vail in search of a new beginning, but to be successful they needed water.
