Greensburg, Home of the World's Largest Hand-Dug Well

Greensburg Big Well-come

Big Well

Looking down.

Looking up.

I promised something deep and it doesn't get any deeper than the world's largest hand-dug well in Greensburg, Kansas.  The well was completed in 1887 to provide water for the railroad.  One crew of men dug the well while a second crew quarried stone and hauled it to the site.  The well served as Greensburg's municipal water supply until 1932.  In 1937 the well opened as a tourist attraction.  It is 109 feet deep and 32 feet in diameter.  The world's largest ball of sisal twine would easily fit inside. 

For two dollars you can descend 105 rickety steel steps to the cool bottom.  I knew climbing the 159 steps up Morningside Park every weekday would come in handy!

From 1949 to last October the Big Well museum and gift shop was also home to the World's largest pallasite (stony iron) meteorite.  The half-ton meteorite is still there under glass, but professional meteorite hunter Steve Arnold found a 1400 pound specimen in the same field in which the Greensburg meteorite was discovered in 1949.

Comments

[Vicky Stonebrook]

I was told that my grandfather was one of the men who dug
the big well, His name was Joseph (Joe) Long. Do you have
any information on him helping to dig the well? Thanks
Vicky

[Joe]

Hi Vicky, I don't have that information. Maybe someone at the well could help you. See their website: http://www.bigwell.org/bigwell.html. I don't know how much of their historical documents remain after last year's tornado.