Opposite 413 Second St.--Temperance Fountain & Gaslight

A lighted drinking fountain was erected in Garrett D. Wall Park in 1910 by the Women’s Temperance League, aka Women's Christian Temperance Union, to provide fresh water "for man and beast." It replaced a Civil War Memorial.

"By 1830, the average American over 15 years old consumed nearly seven gallons of pure alcohol a year...and alcohol abuse (primarily by men) was wreaking havoc on the lives of many, particularly in an age when women had few legal rights and were utterly dependent on their husbands for sustenance and support.

"The country's first serious anti-alcohol movement grew out of a fervor for reform that swept the nation in the 1830s and 1840s. Many abolitionists fighting to rid the country of slavery came to see drink as an equally great evil to be eradicated – if America were ever to be fully cleansed of sin. The temperance movement, rooted in America's Protestant churches, first urged moderation, then encouraged drinkers to help each other to resist temptation, and ultimately demanded that local, state, and national governments prohibit alcohol outright."(Source: https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/roots-of-prohibition/)

The light and base is all that remain of the drinking fountain, a reminder that outright prohibition was difficult to enforce. Amendment 18, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol, was passed by Congress in 1920. It lasted 13 years, 10 months, 19 days, and 17 hrs., but who's counting?