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Ahh, summer. What better time to dig deep into the history of the city’s excellent drinking water?
Memphis is home to one of the world’s largest artesian well systems. Its eponymous aquifer (body of rock and sediment that holds groundwater) contains more than 100 trillion gallons of water that fell, in the form of precipitation, roughly 2,000 years ago!
In 1886, when it was discovered, cold water from the underground aquifer sprang to the surface naturally. Today, mechanical pumps are needed to extract drinking water from the depths of the system – more than 800 feet down near the Mississippi River.
– Hannah Van Sickle, The Memphis 100