In 1883 the Marshall County Commissioners hired Nathan Horton, one of the town's black citizens, to dig a public well in the courthouse yard. The resulting eighty-foot-deep five-foot diameter well is directly under this replica of a 19th century well and contains forty-eight feet of water. A wood shingle roof provided protection for the well and shade for visitors to the courthouse yard. During droughts, townspeople could draw water freely from this well. Two cisterns dug by the city on courthouse grounds in 1893 provided water for fighting fires and watering livestock, but eventually outlived their usefulness. After the local newspaper called them "mosquito hatcheries," city workers filled in the cisterns in 1908, one year after "city water" became available. In 1914 the Women's Christian Temperance Union raised funds to purchase an ornate metal fountain to quench the thirst of its citizens with water instead of liquor from nearby "Booze Row." The fountain was located near the old well but was removed in 1963 during a major renovation of the courthouse. The fountain is now located at the Guntersville Museum.