Pioneer Ingenuity

Believe it or not, these old knots are pipe connectors! Today, when you're laying pipe or repairing a break, you get out your handy PVC cement, slather it on the pipe and connector, and cram them together and you have a leak-free joint. Before PVC, galvanized pipes had to be cut to length, threads cut on the end, pipe dope applied, then everything was screwed together with pipe wrenches. A leak, or a mismeasurement, often meant laboriously unscrewing everything and starting all over.

Well, what if you didn't have access to threading machines or expensive connectors. You could do what the pioneers did. Vard Meeks brought these old examples in from Moccasin and gave them to Mom and Dad. They (the pioneers) would find dense knots of pine or cedar (juniper) and drill holes the same diameter as the pipes. Then they would insert pipes on either side and jam them in until they met and then turn the water on. As the water soaked the wood it would swell and hold the pipes securely. By using a knot, the grain was denser and was laid down in different directions so the wood woudn't split.

I'm sure this wasn't used in houses, but it made a handy and cheap way to join pipes to take water from springs, wells, and reservoirs to corrals and fields, etc.