On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 20:27:45 -0500, Dean Hoffman
" wrote:

On 8/16/12 11:42 AM, micky wrote:
If a house in town the 1910's or 20's had only an outhouse, does that
mean that it did't have running water inside the house?

Specifically, I mean Indianapolis. About a mile or mile and a half
south of the center of town. (Which was or at least became the poor
side of town, compared to the north side.)

My mother told me that she used an outhouse when she was little, but I
guess I assumed my grandparents still had a sink in the kitchen with
city water, rather than going out to a well, or pumping in the
kitchen.

What say ye?

It depends on the age of the house, I guess. My parents (Mom is 91)
had windmills for livestock and hand pumps for the house. They had an
outhouse. I think REA first brought electricity to that farm sometime
around 1947 if I remember the stories correctly.
The first farmhouse I grew up in had running water supplied by a
private well. The only odd thing was lack of a toilet. The outhouse
was maybe 50 yards away or so.
There was also a separate wash house on that farm.
That farm had artisan wells way back when. Livestock watering was
easy. The artisan wells are history. Irrigation has dropped the water
levels too far.
My grandfather's farm had running water in the barn, courtesy of a
"ram pump" down in the springhouse about 200 feet or more from the
barn. The "dairy cooler" was cooled by that spring water, The house,
however, had a pump at the kitchen sink, and a pump on the cistern out
back. The "backhouse" was in the orchard.