Water for Brick Construction Was Carried by Hand from the Court Square Wells

Benjamin Baxter Suttle recalled that when brick buildings were being erected in Shelby during the 1880s, there was no pump or hose available for construction work. He said that water used for making mortar was drawn by hand in buckets from the well on the Court Square. The water was then poured into barrels and rolled across the street to the building sites. According to Suttle, construction depended entirely on manual labor, and building materials were moved and prepared through physical effort rather than machinery.

Source: Mamie Jones