Lamar's home was furnished with a cistern, an underground tank used for the mass storage of fresh water. By attaching a series of gutters to a structure, falling rain water could be captured and diverted into a water storage tank. In the absence of surface rock, the earliest settlers used wooden cisterns. Brick soon became available and enabled the building of much larger tanks. Richmond townspeople and businesses adopted the cistern as their primary source of fresh water. Evidence suggests that the Lamar cistern could date to the mid 1840's.