Print edition: 
GREENSBURG – Imagine gently descending into a spiraling seashell.
That’s the sense architects were creating, engineers planned, and construction workers are currently building at the new Big Well Museum.
Greensburg is gearing up as the calendar fast approaches the fifth anniversary of the devastating EF5 tornado that wiped out most of the town’s infrastructure, including the Big Well museum, although the actual well was left structurally sound.
The new museum is being built around the original well. It won’t be completed by May 4; however, Stacy Barnes, manager of the Big Well, is confident it will be ready later in May, perhaps by Memorial Day weekend.
Barnes grew up in Greensburg and recalled visits to the hand-dug well where divers in scuba gear would submerge themselves into the well for its annual cleaning. They would haul out buckets of items that had been dropped in by visitors. Mostly they brought up coins, a random baby doll, and lots of hard, small rocks that, upon deeper investigation, revealed chewing gum covered in sediment.
Now, when the museum construction is completed, Steve Wedlock – a site manager with McCownGordon Construction of Wichita – hopes someone will go down in the boatsman chair that has been installed for emergency purposes and retrieve the really nice tape measure, pocketknife and hard hats that plunged into the murky water during the recent project.
According to its history, when the well was first dug back in the 1800s it was a “masterpiece of pioneer engineering.” The new design by LawKingdon Architecture of Wichita includes a nautilus shell-like spiral staircase down into the well, which will also marvel visitors, Barnes hopes.
When it came to designing a new entry into the well, Wedlock said designers took a different approach. The old staircase was attached to the original native sandstone walls, quarried from the Medicine River 12 miles south of Greensburg.
The former staircase was narrow and zigzagged along the walls. The new spiral staircase is connected to concrete piles that are tied to footings, so there is no weight bearing on the historic structure. Not only are the new stairs wider, they will be able to sustain more weight.
Barnes said what still amazes her is how the original 109-foot hole was dug with shovels.
Back in the 1800s, it took about 15 men a day, working 10 months, to dig the well, which ties into the Ogallala aquifer. They were cowboys, farmers and transients digging on the well from sun-up to sundown, using shovels, picks, a half-barrel, pulley and rope for tools. They were paid 50 cents to a dollar per day.
Barnes didn’t hesitate when the construction crew offered to give her a ride down to the dark water in a basket, along with a worker, to take a look.
“It was a lifetime opportunity,” Barnes said.
Descending the stairway down to the water will be just one lure to the new Big Well Museum. Those who can’t maneuver the stairs will be able to go to a second level and look down into the hole.
They will also have a bird’s-eye view of Greensburg from the windows that will look out at all sides of the city. Three exhibits will spiral around the wall on the ground floor, telling the history of the well in Greensburg, the tornado, and the rebuilding of the community.
The $3 million project is being paid in part by a $2 million USDA Rural Development Grant and a $1 million loan paid with a half-cent sales tax for repairs to the well that was passed before the tornado.
