Chicago’s Union Stockyards

The Union Stockyards of Chicago Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society

Chlorine was added to drinking water for the first time in the U.S. in Chicago’s Union Stockyards in early September, 1908. The animals had failed to gain weight when given the filtered water of “Bubbly Creek,” a stream so polluted with meat waste that it bubbled with noxious gases. Given city water, the animals thrived, but the city had sued the stockyards for poaching the municipal water supply. With little choice but to return to creek water, the stockyards summoned George A. Johnson, from the New York firm of Hering & Fuller, to analyze that water. Johnson concluded that while filtration had cleared the water of visible particles, levels of invisible bacteria were high. When he added chlorine to the feed water, bacterial counts plummeted, with the surprising result that the quality of the livestock drinking water was reported to surpass that of city water. Chlorinating Union Stockyard feed water solved the livestock drinking water problem. In later years Johnson would use the example of the Union Stockyards to demonstrate that filtration alone, without disinfection, is insufficient for treating drinking water.

Jersey City, New Jersey
Like most American cities at the turn of the Century, Jersey City was plagued by typhoid fever and cholera. Although death rates from these diseases had declined as cleaner water sources were secured over the previous several decades, a drink of water in Jersey City in the early 1900s still represented an unacceptable risk. In 1904 Jersey City had begun consuming water from the new Boonton Reservoir, 23 miles west of the city. The water ran untreated from the reservoir, through a series of steel pipes and masonry conduits, into the homes of 200,000 city residents.

View of Jersey City, circa 1910 Photo courtesy of The New Jersey Room, Jersey City Free Public Library

In those years, the Jersey City Evening Journal* chronicled a long legal battle between the city and a local water company over the quality of the municipal water supply. The city claimed the Jersey City Water Supply Company had failed to provide “pure and wholesome” water to its customers, as specified by its contract. The city was adamant that the water company provide expensive sewer treatment for communities in the watershed or filter the water to improve its quality.

An astute advisor to the water company, Dr. John Leal, noted that bacteria levels in city water rose chiefly during periods of flooding and high water. He attributed intermittent poor water quality to polluted runoff from streets and “manured fields” rather than from the sewage outfall in the watershed, as the city contended. With guidance from Dr. Leal, the water company asked the court for an opportunity to suggest its own method of meeting the contract requirements.

Dr. Leal had a novel solution in mind. His earlier experiments with chlorine disinfectants led him to believe that he could rid city water of bacteria using very low concentrations of chlorine disinfectants. Working with George Warren Fuller of Hering & Fuller, a system was designed to chlorinate water as it left the Boonton Reservoir for the journey to Jersey City. On September 26, 1908, U.S. public health history was made as chlorine was added to the Jersey City water supply—it was the first time chlorinated water would arrive on a permanent basis in American homes.

Gate Houses and Chlorination Plant at Boonton Reservoir, circa 1908 (The chlorination plant is the building at the center.) Photo courtesy of Keith Wood, Watershed Superintendent, United Water Jersey City

In a national gathering of water professionals at the 1909 annual meeting of the American Water Works Association, the argument for chemical disinfection was elevated to a level of prominence. Here, beyond the realm of local politics, Leal and his associates from New York, George Warren Fuller and George A. Johnson, presented data that supported the effectiveness and low cost of chlorination. The men showed that small applications of chlorine could significantly reduce bacterial levels in drinking water. Johnson revealed the cost of chlorine treatment to be just 14 cents per million gallons, a mere $5.60 per day for Jersey City’s 40 million gallon daily usage.

The following spring, the Boonton chlorination plant was approved by a “special master in chancery” of the court. The decision catalyzed the widespread acceptance of one of the most important public health measures ever implemented. By the 1920s, chlorination was well-established as the primary means of disinfecting drinking water and it had been adopted by most American cities.

Plummeting typhoid fever rates demonstrated the public health benefit of chlorine disinfectants, and chlorine disinfection combined with filtration. In his June, 1909 report to the AWWA, Dr. Leal said he believed one of the most important uses of chlorination would be “in conjunction with filtration.” His words were prophetic: in 1997 Life magazine declared, “The filtration of drinking water plus the use of chlorine is probably the most significant public health advance of the millennium.”

One hundred years after its American debut in the feed troughs of Chicago’s stockyards and in turn-of-the-century Jersey City tap water, chlorine disinfection continues to play an essential role safeguarding public health here and around the world.

Acknowledgement
The American Chemistry Council’s Chlorine Chemistry Division acknowledges the kind assistance of the following individuals in the development of this article: Michael J. McGuire, Ph.D., PE, Malcolm Pirnie; Keith Wood, Watershed Superintendent, United Water Jersey City; and Bruce Brandt and John Beekman of The New Jersey Room of the Jersey City Free Public Library.

*In 1910 the "Evening Journal" became the Jersey Journal.