Durham got smoked up this week. Our atmospheric condition sort of brought back the old days, when breathing in Durham was said to be the equivalent of a three-pack-a-day habit -- though it must be said there's a great deal of difference between smoldering Hyde County scrub and aging brightleaf tobacco.

The former just stinks; the later smells like money.

However, the smoky presence might also remind us of the role fire has played in making Durham what it is today.

Indeed, the ornate grillework at the entrance to the Snow Building downtown bears the image of the phoenix -- fabled bird that rises reinvigorated from its own immolation.

Durham, being the quick-buck boomtown that it was in its youth, went up in a hurry in the material closest to hand: wood. Wooden buildings are readily susceptible to combustion, and firefighting water was available only from wells and rain puddles.

After a while, when Main Street had become practically uninsurable, the town fathers acted.

They bought a fire wagon and buckets, but held the fiscal line on actually authorizing a fire department.

However, they did contract with the Durham Water Co., formed by banker Eugene Morehead and other worthy men of business, to build and run a municipal water system

The Durham Water Co. began operations 1887 and served so well that the city's business district went up in flames again in 1894, 1895, 1897 and 1914.

In that last case, the fire was quickly discovered by the Rev. S.S. Bost of St. Philip's Episcopal Church, who promptly raised the alarm. By then, Durham had a fire department, and it raced into action -- until a brand-new water main busted wide open.

Oddly enough, the city's contract with the water company (which had been taken over by Boston interests after going into receivership twice in the 1890s) was up for renewal.

The city bought the water works and, with $500,000 worth of bonds ($10.4 million in 2008 money) approved less than a month after the fire, built a new, improved water system of its own -- the services of which Bull Citizens still enjoy, at least as long as it rains enough to keep the reservoirs full.

We've been hearing a lot about water quality lately, and that was an issue back in the old days, too.

The Durham Water Co. built its reservoir on Nancy Rhodes Creek, where it runs into the Eno River, and pumped water up from there to the top of Huckleberry Hill (near the junction of Rose of Sharon and Cole Mill roads; the holding tank is still there). Gravity brought the water the four miles down to town.

But by the time the city went into the water business, citizens called their water source the "filthy Eno" -- due to sewage and industrial waste dumped into the river upstream.

To ease the public mind, the new pump station was built on the Flat River instead. Looking to the future, in the 1920s the city built Lake Michie, which proved a sufficient supply for the next 50+ years.

Come to think of it, we've been hearing a lot about water supplies lately, too. Last we looked, Lake Michie and the Little River reservoir were close to full, but there wasn't a whole lot of water running in.

Ah, the old days.

Such nostalgia -- must be something in the air. Here as well as Hyde County.

Anyone for rain?