The Modern Cowboy: Second Edition

13. Windmills

125 Chapter Thirteen Windmills The Central Plains region of the United States is an ocean of grass, and like the ocean, it has very little potable water. Vast stretches of the Central Plains lack a reliable year-round supply of surface water and until the windmill appeared in the West in the 1880s, cattle ranching was a seasonal enterprise. Our entire system of cattle ranching in the prairie states owes its existence to the mass production of these windpowered pumping devices. The windmill is a simple machine that performs the simple function of raising a small amount of water from the ground. It consists of three parts: the tower, the head, and the hole. The most conspicuous part of the windmill, and the one most people associate with the name, is the tower. That is the structure you see in the distance when you are driving through the prairie states. There are no moving parts in the tower, no machinery. It’s just scaffold, usually with four legs, that holds the head and fan above the ground where they can be exposed to a constant flow of wind. It may be as short as fifteen feet or as tall as fifty. In the early days all towers were made of wood, and a few of them have survived to the present day. Most are a horror to climb because the wood is rotten and you can never be sure when the piece you’re standing on is going to turn into sawdust. Most of the old wooden towers have been replaced by structures made of galvanized angle iron or welded pipe. The legs are either set in cement 126 — What Cowboys Do or bolted to posts set deep into the ground. This gives the tower a firm foundation that will keep it standing upright in a high wind. The device that is perched on top of the tower is the motor, which converts wind into mechanical energy, and it can be divided into three components: the fan, the head, and the tail. The fan of a modern windmill is constructed of galvanized steel blades that are curved to catch the wind and are connected to a hub by steel spokes. The diameter of the fan determines the amount of energy it produces and the amount of water it can pump. A six-foot fan can service a shallow well of, say, twenty to sixty feet. A deeper well, one going down to two hundred feet, will require an eight-foot fan. And very deep wells, those going down to four hundred feet or more, will require a fan of ten, twelve, or fourteen feet. When you buy a new fan, it comes in sections that can be hoisted to the top of the tower by a rope and bolted into place. If part of the fan thrashes in a high wind, the defective section can be replaced with a new one, and the job can be done on the tower by one man with a wrench and a set of vice-grip pliers. Keeping the LZ ranch windmills running is an important summer job. (1980) Windmills — 127 The tail provides a counterbalance to the weight of the fan and also holds the fan into the wind, turning the head on its pivot so that it adjusts automatically to changes in the direction of the wind. And it also serves as an automatic shutoff in a high wind. The tail is springloaded , so that when the wind reaches a certain velocity, it folds back against the fan and activates the braking system, either slowing the fan down or shutting it off entirely. The third component that sits on top of the tower contains the guts of the windmill. It is called the head or motor, and it sits between the fan and the tail. The fan is connected to a horizontal shaft that runs into the cast-iron housing of the head. The shaft moves on roller bearings and turns with the fan. Through a system of gears inside the head, the whirling of the fan is translated into an up-and-down motion, called the stroke. It is this stroke that brings the water to the surface. The windmill motor is a simple mechanical device composed of shafts, bearings, and gears, which means that even cowboys, who are not famous for their comprehension of machinery, can figure out...