Grayson County TXGenWeb

In 1909 June and July less than an inch of rain fell on Denison and August was as bad - slightly more than an inch of rain. The drought was so bad that the Katy water tanks that filled the steam locomotive boilers went dry because between Denison and Greenville on through south to Hillsboro because the lakes that supplied water for the railroad were too low to supply the tanks. The Katy sent water trains out from Denison to towns to the south. According to Frank McCune, there were three huge cypress containers, holding about 15,000 gallons of water, were loaded on flat bed cars and filled at the Sears St. water tank to send on the water trains. This was made possible because Denison was getting water from spring-fed Waterloo Lake, which in 1909 had an 85 foot tall storoage standpipe.
But in 1910 Denison changed its water source from Waterloo Lake to Randell Lake, which didn't fill up as fast as anticipated; consequently Denison felt its own shortage of water. Danger at that time was, of course, fire.

In 1910 the Denison Fire Deparment's equipment consisted of two horse-drawn fire hose carts and a horse-drawn hood-and-ladder wagon that carried chemicals to fight the fires with. The staff consisted of Fire Chief John C. Cooper and eight firemen on duty at 24/7 at the station in the 300 block of West Chestnut.
According to Frank McCune, one city block burned to the ground because the water pressure was so low that the streams from the fire hoses couldn't reach the burning houses. There was a fire on the north side of East Morton street, in the 100 block; wind from the west took flames from one house to the next until all five houses on the block were destroyed. The firefighters struggled in vain in the wee hours of the morning because only small streams of water came out of their hoses. The frame First Christian Church, the parsonage next door, and three other homes were destroyed by the fire in the summer of 1913
Every time a fire was spotted, the big bell in the cupola of the fire station rang, ringing a certain number of times to indicate which of the four wards the fire was located in. That very bell as stated in The Dallas Morning News, July 25, 1942 had been long discarded; however the article went on to say that "Denison's long-discarded fire bell...is on its way to toll the funeral dirge for the Axis nations." The bell, weighing 1,190 pounds, had been used by a rural school for 20 years, then sold for junk, brining only a minimal amount of $4.75.
When the drought was broken, by 1913 the water pressure was better but Denison did not allow its citizens to water their lawns or use their outside hyrants during the summer months. This was enforced by the use of policemen driving around town in horse-drawn buggies to make sure the rationing of water was being followed.

Source: Donna Hunt. "Lack of Water in Denison Never a Problem." Herald Democrat, Sunday, December 2, 2007