Looking Back ‘Gone for Water’ July 14, 1978

It was 44 years ago this week that Olneyites banded together for 25 hours to save the town from dying of thirst. The reservoir at Lake Cooper, which supplies Olney’s water, was within 120 days of drying up entirely after four years of drought cut rainfall in half and temperatures soared to above 100 degrees for weeks on end. The only solution was to pipe water from Wichita Falls’ Lake Kickapoo to fill up Lake Cooper – an endeavor that engineers said would cost over $1 million and take at least a year to complete.

Mayor Alan Myers Jr. cut a deal with Wichita Falls for 1 million gallons per day from Lake Kickapoo to get Olney through the drought – then he had to figure out how to move the water 14 miles to Lake Kickapoo. To do the job within the city’s budget, Myers located surplus World War II-era “invasion pipe” – the type that had been laid above ground in combat zones to supply water for troops. On July 14, 1978, amid national record temperatures of 116 degrees, a couple of hundred Olneyites pitched in to build the pipeline - men heaving the heavy lengths of pipe, and women supplying cold drinks and food.

A People magazine writer who came to watch the spectacle noted that merchants, lawyers, ranchers and homeowners put signs on their homes, offices and shops, saying: “Closed. Gone for water.”

The volunteers ran out of pipe about a mile and a half short of Lake Kickapoo that afternoon but Mayor Myers found enough pipe at a warehouse in Oklahoma to complete the job a few days later. They finished in two hours, and the crew tossed Myers into Lake Kickapoo to celebrate. The job took 25 hours and cost $350.