The Big Well, Greensburg

Greensburg's claim to fame is a hole in the ground, and a remarkable one. The Big Well is billed as the largest hand dug well in the United States, one hundred nine feet deep and thirty two feet across. Crews of a dozen or so farmers and cowboys dug it in eighteen eighty seven and eighty eight using nothing but picks, shovels, a rope and pulley, and half a barrel to haul up the dirt, earning fifty cents to a dollar a day.

A staircase and lighting went in later, and by the late nineteen thirties it was open to tourists. Then, in May of two thousand seven, an enormous tornado leveled about ninety five percent of Greensburg. The town rebuilt itself as a model of green energy, but the Big Well survived, and its museum now tells both stories, the well and the storm.