Gilbertsville Water Works

Water for the village of Gilbertsville comes from a chain of dams, channels, reservoirs and small buildings along Dunderberg Creek, in a wooded rural area northwest of the village. The district has two separate parts, one of about 56 acres and one of about 8 acres, and includes a diversion dam, silting dam, storage reservoir, brick gatehouse, filter beds, a distribution reservoir and a water treatment building. The first system was built in 1896 after repeated fires, many of them arson, destroyed much of the village center. The village was incorporated that year specifically to create a water supply. By 1914-18 the original system was inadequate and hardly sanitary, so engineers Vrooman and Perry designed a $45,000 expansion. The village paid $10,000 and Joseph T. Gilbert paid the rest. The new works added a 5,000,000-gallon storage reservoir and filtration, and reused the 1896 distribution reservoir. It has served the village for nearly a century and keeps a high level of integrity.