Crystal Spring Pump Station — Victorian Engineering

The Crystal Spring Steam Pumping Station was built in 1905 as a one-story building in common-bond brick, constructed to house a Corliss-type pump made by the Snow Steam Pump Company in Buffalo, New York. At its peak, the pump provided five million gallons of water daily. It was in operation from 1905 to 1957, and was an important source of fresh water in Roanoke's early history. The pumping station makes use of Crystal Spring, a perennial spring emerging from the foot of Mill Mountain. The spring was used by Native Americans prior to European settlement. The land surrounding it was granted in a 1747 patent to Mark Evans, an early settler. Evans's son Daniel built a gristmill on the spring. In the mid-1750s, George Washington passed through the area and noted in his journal a three-shilling payment, likely for lodging, to the "Widow Evans." In 1782, the Evans family sold the mill and surrounding land, including the spring, to William McClanahan. In 1881, boosters from Big Lick succeeded in securing it as the junction and later headquarters of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad and the Norfolk and Western Railway. The presence of the nearby spring was a significant reason for the railways' choice of the area. Water from the spring was fed by gravity north to the railroads, then pumped into a storage tank southeast of the town. By 1884, Big L