Historic Johnson Spring

After several drought years that stressed the existing municipal water system of wells and local springs, the city of Berryville acquired the 387 acres on Pension Mountain, 5 miles south of the city.When purchased in February of 1933 this property surrounded the historic Johnson Spring and functions as a ‘springs preserve’.  Today this tract of land includes the Johnson Spring, the Pension Mountain Cemetery, and a single room ‘old red school house’.

As the Johnson Spring was 176 feet higher than the top of the City’s downtown water tower, engineers developed a plan to create a gravity fed water system, ultimately the largest such system in the mid west.  In the midst of America’s great depression, in January 1934, Mr. Jim Hyde was hired by the city’s water commissioners with funding received from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC).   Mr. Hyde coordinated the local labor and resources to lay water pipe from the Johnson Spring location to the Berryville Town Square water tower (approximately six miles).  On Saturday, June 9, 1934 at 2:22 p.m. water was added to the main and overtopped the tower tank.  At that time “C.C. Whitely, the mayor, caused the fire alarm to sound.”

Repeated measurements of the spring flow fixed its supply at a minimum of 60 gallons per minute and this new source was promoted as a ‘soft water’… “not chemically treated in anyway whatsoever”.

“So great was the enthusiasm of the Johnson Spring promoters, they put out publicity in Berryville and surrounding towns that the town’s new waters supply had curative agencies and would help ailments of the kidneys, bladder, stomach and intestinal tract.  Some went so far as to hint that the ‘Fountain of Youth’ which Ponce de Leon searched for and didn’t find… might be Johnson Spring.”

Over time, with periodic shortages of water, and an increasing need, Berryville developed several additional water sources, including Bunch Springs, and the Kings River.  Today, the Berryville municipal water system is treated surface water from Carroll Boone Water District whose source is Beaver Lake.