He lined the walls with field stone as he went. Stones he’d been pulling out of his fields for 39 years and piling along the fence rows. It took him 4 months. He dug in the mornings before the heat, and again in the evenings, when the shadow of the windmill reached the hole. 61 years old, lean as wire, standing at the bottom of a shaft that got deeper every day, filling a bucket with dirt and hauling it up with a hand winch.
His neighbors drove past and stared. Some stopped. “Alvin, what in God’s name are you doing? Digging a well by hand? That’s right. The government will put in a center pivot for $35,000 on a 20-year loan at 4%. ” And you’re digging a hole in the ground with a shovel. That’s right. You’re out of your mind. Maybe. At 37 ft, Alvin hit gravel. Wet gravel. The water seeped in slowly at first. A puddle at the bottom of the shaft, then an inch, then 2 in.
By the time he dug to 42 ft, the water was rising faster than he could bail. He’d found it. He lined the bottom with more field stone, installed a hand pump, and later added a small windmill pump that he built from salvaged parts. An old air motor frame, new sucker rod, leather cups he cut himself. Total cost of Alvin Ducker’s well, about $300 in materials, plus 4 months of his own labor. The well produced 8 gall per minute.
Not much. A center pivot used 800. But Alvin didn’t need 800 gall minute. He wasn’t growing irrigated corn. He was growing dryland wheat, a crop that needed rain, not pipes. The well was for his house, his livestock, and his garden, and for one other thing that nobody understood at the time, insurance. “What do you mean insurance?” His wife Mabel asked him. “Someday,” Alvin said. “The big water is going to run out. When it does, this little water is going to be the most valuable thing in the county.” Mabel looked at the well, looked at the windmill, and looked at her husband.
You’re either the smartest man in Kansas or the craziest, she said. Might be both. Alvin said. Now, let me tell you about the next 15 years. Because this is where the two paths start to diverge slowly at first, then all at once. 1972 through 1978, the boom years. Irrigated farmers in Sheridan County were making more money than they’d ever seen. Corn prices were high. Yields were high. Everyone expanded. More pivots, more acres, more loans. Land prices climbed from $80 to $300 to $500 an acre.
