Priming the Pump

By editor

Fort Benton, Chouteau County, Montana

If you find yourself standing before the small, circular brick building in Fort Benton, Montana, you might wonder what sort of contraption it is -- a folly, a roundhouse, a tea cozy for giants. In fact, this modest structure, built in 1933, was a cog in a grand federal scheme to drag America out of the Great Depression by “priming the pump” of the economy. The pump in question was not some metaphorical hocus-pocus but a literal water pump, part of a Public Works Administration project aimed at modernizing the town’s water system. Congress, having allocated $6 billion for such ventures, saw projects like Fort Benton’s water plant as a means to both create jobs and improve public welfare. The idea was simple: build things people needed, keep folks employed, and send money flowing through the economy like the Missouri River at flood stage.

Fort Benton, perched on the banks of that mighty river, had a history with water treatment that reached back decades before the PWA ever dreamed of its pump. In 1888, the town built what is credited as Montana’s first municipal water treatment plant, located roughly where this Interpretive Center now sits. It was an ambitious undertaking for a frontier town, reflecting Fort Benton’s importance as the "Head of Navigation" on the Missouri River -- a title earned by being the furthest point upstream that steamboats could reliably reach. This fact alone made Fort Benton a hub of trade, land speculation, and the occasional misadventure.

The 1888 water plant was a brick building with a 70-foot smokestack, which a local newspaper, the Fort Benton River Press, found so impressive it declared: “It is a neat comely brick building that attracts the attention of the visitor, and its thirty-inch smokestack that towers seventy feet in the air is suggestive of a manufacturing industry. Strange, isn't it, what man's ingenuity and inventive genius has accomplished in the modern days in which we are living.” The paper’s reporter was not wrong to marvel, especially since the technology used was both ancient and surprisingly advanced for the region.

The plant employed a method of water purification that traces its lineage back to the Egyptians around 1500 B.C., who used alum -- or potash -- to clarify water. River water was pumped into settling ponds where alum was added, causing sediments to clump and sink. The clear water was then funneled through wooden pipes to homes. This process might sound rudimentary, but in an era when cholera and typhoid were ever-present threats, such treatment was cutting-edge.

Yet, as decades passed, Fort Benton’s water system showed its age. By the time the Great Depression gripped the nation, the plant was “decaying and in need of repairs,” as one might politely say when a building is held together with hope and stubbornness. The city’s water system was Montana’s oldest, and its crumbling state was a metaphor for the economic collapse gripping the country.

Enter the Public Works Administration, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, created by Congress in 1933 with a headline figure of $6 billion. The PWA was charged with funding large-scale public works projects to jump-start the economy and provide immediate employment. Fort Benton’s water plant modernization fit neatly into this plan. The circular brick building you see was erected as a pump house, designed to pull water from the Missouri River and push it through a new treatment system that used chlorine -- a relatively new disinfectant in municipal water treatment that had only become widespread in the early 20th century.

Chlorination was a game-changer. Before its adoption, waterborne diseases killed thousands. The introduction of chlorine greatly reduced typhoid and other illnesses, turning water treatment from a hopeful guess into a reliable science. The new system in Fort Benton served the town well until 1987 when a more modern facility was built downriver. The round pump house itself remained, a relic of both Depression-era ingenuity and the persistent need for clean water.

Now, here’s a curious twist: Fort Benton has continued to lead in water treatment innovation. The plant built in 1987, downstream from the original, was the first municipal water treatment facility in the United States to use ultraviolet light as its primary means of disinfecting river water. This technology, which uses UV rays to kill bacteria and viruses without chemicals, was cutting-edge at the time and remains a standard today in many places.

The story of Fort Benton’s water treatment is not just a tale of pipes and pumps but a reflection of the town’s place in American history. It was a center of commerce, shipping, and speculation during the late 19th century. The Missouri River, once the superhighway of the West, brought steamboats laden with goods and settlers eager to carve out a future. But as railroads pushed westward, steam navigation declined, and towns like Fort Benton had to adapt or fade.

One might imagine the town’s leaders in the 1930s, faced with a decaying water system and a nation in economic free-fall, weighing their options. The PWA project offered not just federal dollars but hope. A letter from the Montana State Engineer’s office in 1934 notes, “The modernization of Fort Benton’s waterworks will not only safeguard public health but will furnish employment to many deserving citizens.” It was a practical proposition, devoid of grand oratory, yet vital.

And so the pump was primed, both literally and figuratively. The PWA’s investment here was part of a larger pattern -- across Montana and the country, thousands of projects sought to build infrastructure and rebuild confidence. Fort Benton’s water plant modernization was a small piece of a much larger national effort, but it reflected the tangible results of government intervention in a time of crisis.

It’s worth noting that while the PWA funneled billions into projects, the outcomes were mixed. Some projects languished or inflated costs, others failed to deliver promised employment. But in Fort Benton, the project delivered a functioning water system that served the community for more than half a century. The town that had once been the head of navigation on the Missouri managed to stay afloat, in more ways than one.

In the end, the pump house in front of you is a modest building that witnessed the transformation of Fort Benton from a 19th-century river port to a 20th-century modern town. It still stands, silent yet sturdy, a relic of an era when the federal government took a hands-on approach to both economics and public health. As the old River Press reporter put it in 1888, “Strange, isn't it, what man's ingenuity and inventive genius has accomplished in the modern days in which we are living.” The words ring true, even today, in this little town on the Missouri.

See also

• Priming the Pump at Fort Benton, Chouteau County
• Stream Flow Monitoring at Fort Benton, Chouteau County
• Grasshoppers in the River? at Fort Benton, Chouteau County