A bit of American Fork history surfaced recently.

Contractors were digging along 200 East to place a pipe for the main distribution line for the city's pressurized irrigation system when they found historic pipes and a concrete culvert under the road. They uncovered two segments of wooden pipe in different sizes that combined for 12 to 15 feet in length.

Both were made from wood, which appeared to be redwood, said John Woffinden, who works for Horrocks Engineers and has been working to protect the pipe for the future.

"We were told it was redwood, but it is hard to tell," he said. "It is coated in tar. The pipe is made of individual boards about 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide and about three-quarters of an inch thick. They were dovetailed together so they would fit tightly. They were wrapped in wire."

Since the pipe was removed from the road, it has begun to dry out and started to crumble, Woffinden said.

"The wood has been wet so long it is now shrinking," he said. He plans on reinforcing it so it can maintain its original shape.

Also under the road, the contractors found a piece of a concrete culvert. It was about 5 square feet with foot-thick walls, ceiling and roof.

"It was placed by hand and even mixed by hand," Woffinden said. "They didn't have the technology we do back then. This was a standard way to build pipe in the 1800s. It would be unreal to do this today." He said he could not estimate how long it would take to do a project by hand.

Merrill Beck, a resident of 200 East, has told Horrocks and city workers about the history of the area.

"My dad, Calvert Beck, used to rent the city pasture where the golf course is," he said. "In the middle, we raised cucumbers. Then we took them to Lehi to sell. On the south end where the ponds are, there was a pasture. Pumps for the city water lines were in the pasture." His dad grew wheat in the area where the irrigation pond will be built. "We lived right by the culvert," he said. "My cousin and I used to crawl through it. We were 12 or 13. I noticed when they dug it out, the cement was still real thick. All that had to have been dug by hand."

Woffinden said Beck knew a lot about the history. "Merrill Beck has been a wealth of information on this road," he said. "As far as he knows, this pipe was laid in the late 1800s. His dad said this used to be a main road and they used to bring the wagons with ore down from the canyon."

"This road has been used for so many things for so many years, nobody really knows for sure what is in the ground until we dig it up," Woffinden said. That will change for the future.

"We are resurveying and will complete an 'as-built' map of the road so people will know exactly what is here and where it is," he said.