Moment in Time (August 18, 2021)
Marcus “Mark” Hanna was a prominent politician from Ohio. Hanna was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1897 and again in 1903, and served as chairman of the Republican National Committee beginning in 1896. Sometimes known as the 'President-Maker’, Hanna lent his organizational talents (and money) to Ohio Republicans who sought the presidency between 1876 and 1900, including Rutherford Hayes, James A. Garfield, John Sherman, and William McKinley. He helped elect McKinley governor of Ohio in 1891 and president in 1896 and 1900. In 1903, Hanna’s health started to decline, and it was discovered that he suffered from typhoid fever as a result of drinking tainted water in Columbus. He died in 1904.
The Scioto Water Purification Plant and Pumping Station on Dublin Road near
Grandview was built in 1908 to include water treatment processes in order to provide
clean water to Columbus. Impetus for the plant resulted from the death of a prominent
U.S. senator from typhoid fever from drinking tainted water.
Hanna’s death was significant, in that it pushed Columbus politicians and city engineers to pay attention to the pressing need for clean water. A group of scientists and MIT-trained sanitary engineering individuals were mobilized to study the problem, resulting in what became known as the Great Columbus Experiment of 1908 (documented in a book titled "The Great Columbus Experiment of 1908: Waterworks that Changed the World", by Conrade Hinds). In spite of disagreements among city politicians, the result of the ‘experiment' was a water- treatment system that virtually eliminated the scourge of typhoid, cholera and many other waterborne diseases.
This filtration system was part of the design of a new treatment facility for Columbus, to replace the first well and the pumping station placed in operation in 1871 at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy Rivers. This new facility (shown in this photo nearing completion), called the Scioto Water Purification Plant and Pumping Station, was built on Dublin Road just west of where the Twin Rivers Post Office is currently located. It was completed in 1908 and was the first water plant in the United States to combine filtration and water softening, a process developed by two brothers, Clarence Hoover, chief chemist and bacteriologist of sewage treatment, and Charles Hoover, chemist in charge of the water plant. The brothers were instrumental in inventing methods of water and wastewater treatment that are still used today. The system was so effective that in its first six months of operation at the end of 1908, there were only six deaths from typhoid in the city. By 1919, that number had dwindled to one.
The Scioto Water Purification Plant and Pumping Station has subsequently undergone several major upgrades. In 1975, a new water plant was completed on the original grounds of the facility and was renamed the Dublin Road Water Plant. This new upgrade could treat 65 million gallons of water per day (mgd) using the conventional two-stage water softening process. In 2018, another upgrade increased the treatment volume utilizing surface water from the Griggs and O'Shaughnessy Reservoirs on the Scioto River to serve downtown Columbus, western, and southwestern Franklin County with clean water.