Peoria's Mineral Springs is located on a site on the hillside of
Peoria's Historic West Bluff. The cave-like barrel-vaulted brick
reservoir, built about 1843, is concealed in the gentle slope of
the hillside. The reservoir, built for Peoria's first water
company, captures the flow of three individual springs.
Since approx 14,500 years ago when the last vestiges of the
great ice sheets still lingered in Northeastern Illinois, a
perpetual spring has been flowing at this site. In 1843, five of
the founding fathers of the city of Peoria Charles Oakley, Norman
Purple, William Moss, Augustus O. Garrett and Lester O. Hurlbert
were granted a charter by Illinois Governor, Thomas Ford, to
establish the first water supply for the City of Peoria. A
cave-like brick reservoir was built into the hillside to contain
the three springs at the source and pipes were laid to carry the
water as far as Hancock Street, about two miles away. The springs
were the primary water source for the City of Peoria for
approximately 15 years. At that time another water source was
established near the Illinois river to meet the increasing demand
for water caused by Peoria's rapidly growing population. The
overflow from the springs was used as a partial supply for Peoria's
historic goose lake, located just below the bluff. The springs are
still free-flowing to this day.
At the time the reservoir was built, Zealy Moss built a home for
himself at this site. In addition to supplying the City of Peoria
with water through its system of pipes, the water was bottled and
sold on the site. The Moss home, still existat, contains the
original bottling room. Other residents of the home were Lydia Moss
Bradley, who later founded Bradley University, Bradley Hospital
(later St. Francis) and donated Bradley Park to the city of Peoria.
The former home is not in good shape at this time and is a private
residence.
The site was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic
Places on March 5, 1982.
A barrel vault is the simplest form of a vault and resembles a
barrel or tunnel cut lengthwise in half. The effect is that of a
structure composed of continuous semicircular or pointed sections.
The earliest known examples of barrel vaults were built by the
Sumerians, possibly under the Ziggurat at Nippur in Babylonia,
which was built of fired bricks cemented with clay mortar.
A spring is a point where groundwater flows out of the ground,
and is thus where the acquifer surface meets the ground
surface.
Dependent upon the constancy of the water source (rainfall or
snowmelt that infiltrates the earth), a spring may be ephemeral
(intermittent) or perennial (continuous).
Minerals become dissolved in the water as it moves through the
underground rocks. This may give the water flavor and even carbon
dioxide bubbles, depending upon the nature of the geology through
which it passes. This is why spring water is often bottled and sold
as mineral water, although the term is often the subject of
deceptive advertising. Springs that contain significant amounts of
minerals are sometimes called 'mineral springs'. Springs that
contain large amounts of dissolved sodium salts, mostly sodium
carbonate, are called 'soda springs'. Many resorts have developed
around mineral springs known as spa towns.
To log this cache you must do the following: Answer the
questions to see if you were paying attention and attach a photo of
you or your GPS at the Peoria Mineral Springs barrel vault
site.
Question1 How long have the Peoria Mineral Springs been
flowing?
Question 2 A spring my be ephemeral or perennial? What does that
mean?
Question 3: How far is the barrel vault from the nearby
descriptive plaque?
Please do not include spoilers in your cache log. Finally,
please do not enter the barrel vault as this would be unsafe and is
outside the parameters of this geocache.
