Ram Pump

This ram pump supplied the Higgins Lake Nursery with up to 18,000 gallons of water a day for irrigating all the seed beds, first by hand and later through a piping system installed in the 1930s. The nursery was deliberately built near a water source so it would always have water for seedlings, even during a drought. Installed in 1911 downstream from the spring that feeds Higgins Lake, the pump provided a reliable and inexpensive way to move large amounts of water and needed repairs only twice. Housed in a small wooden structure, it used no electricity: gravity carried pond water down the drive pipe to the pump, and hydraulic pressure pushed the water up the delivery pipe to the 105,000-gallon cistern, from which it flowed down to the nursery. The pump was replaced in the early 1950s with two 25-horsepower electric pumps and was moved here after the nursery closed.

Michigan · United States