1859: Shepherd let the water flow

This takes us back to a town whose inhabitants generally drew their drinking water from a well by their house. This remained the case even when population growth and industrialization made Offenbach's groundwater increasingly undrinkable in the 19th century. It was not until the second half of the century that progress was made. Friedrich August Schäfer, the mayor from 1849 to 1859, got the water flowing. Offenbach honors him with the name of a street south of the railroad line.

In a letter to the Grand Ducal government in Darmstadt on February 15, 1851, Schäfer initiated the construction of a central water supply. Good drinking water was "almost non-existent" in Offenbach, it said. And: "Due to the many factories here, some of the little bad water has become completely unusable."

A financial basis was provided. For the construction of a water pipeline, the citizens waived the compensation they were entitled to for military quartering in the revolutionary year of 1848. At the time, federal troops were stationed in Offenbach to protect the Paulskirche parliament in Frankfurt.

The first water flowed into the town from the "Kalte Klinge" spring in 1859. It was pumped from the forest behind the end of Schumannstraße. Via Senefelderstrasse and Waldstrasse, which were still open fields at the time, the pipeline initially led to a well on the market square. After further expansion, the network fed 33 public wells in the city.

The people of Offenbach were delighted with the progress. In September 1859, when a year had passed since the "Kalte Klinge" well had received its keystone, a party moved from there to Schäfer's house to celebrate the "water mayor". At this point, Schäfer was no longer in office.

Only in exceptional cases did the water get directly into the house, and even there it only reached the first floor at best. The pressure of the natural slope was too weak. Old chronicles tell us that in the first hours after midnight, maids and servants would gather at the well to fetch water, because only then would enough water flow. This remained the case even after the "Kalten Klinge" (Cold Blade) in the south of the town had been tapped.

However, this supply was not sufficient for long in the rapidly growing town. The city fathers considered and rejected filtering the Main water. In 1871, they turned their attention to the Vordermark. New wells could be tapped there. A large reservoir was built at the Tempelseemühle. The inner-city pipeline network became denser. Eight new wells were added around 1900 between today's highway and Heusenstamm. The well chamber on Waldenburger Weg must have been built in the decades after 1871.

The modern era began in 1902 with the commissioning of the Hintermark waterworks. Now it was no longer necessary to use the chamber on Waldenburger Weg at Tempelseemühle

A steam engine hissed away at the Hintermark plant. However, the Vordermark plant remained operational until the 1930s. It only became redundant with the construction of the Martinsee waterworks in the Heusenstamm district. The well chamber was presumably backfilled at that time and the subsidence has probably been remedied in the meantime.

Today, Offenbach obtains its drinking water from a special-purpose association from the city and district. Since 1968, the elevated tanks on Bieberer Berg, visible from afar, have provided the necessary pressure in the city network. Experts attest to the excellent quality of the water that flows from there to households and businesses.

Lothar R. Brown