Read time: 4 min.

Just a day after I posted about the shuttered Pipe Creek well in northern Madison County, someone in a local history group dropped a tip about another one nearby. I hadn’t seen it! A quick dive into Google Maps turned into a real-life detour. Before I knew it, I’d visited my fortieth flowing well.

I’d never heard of Sly Fork, the little stream near where this well was supposedly tucked away. Fortunately, County Road 400 South rang a bell. Also known as East 67th Street, it’s the road that connects Meijer with Middletown. I must’ve driven past the flowing well countless times without ever realizing it was there.

With little but a general location to go on, a friend offered to scout out the well while I was stuck at work. No luck, unfortunately- she couldn’t spot anything. Thanks to a few clarifying comments on Facebook, though, I managed to track it down on Google Street View. I was certain that the plain PVC pipe I spied in tall grass about a football field west of the creek and thirty feet back from the road, had to be the well. 

I gave my friend the coordinates. She headed out again. Pulling off the road wasn’t easy, apparently, and the ground looked a little sketchy underfoot. She managed to snap a photo of the pipe from a distance, but no water seemed to be flowing. 

I was disappointed, but not convinced. That grass was too green; too tall. Something had to be watering it! It’s not unusual for old well casings to be damaged at ground level, after all. Sometimes, water trickles out from the bottom. I knew I had to see it for myself. The next morning, I ventured to Sly Fork.

It took me about half an hour to reach the stream. I spotted the pipe, saw the rough pull-off, and eased the car through a gap in the fence. No sound of burbling or trickling greeted me, but I wasn’t giving up that easily: I pushed through the tall grass, got up close, and there it was! I found that the plastic pipe was loosely fitted into a wider metal casing. Sure enough, water was quietly trickling up from the gap in between. A small, murky pool radiated out to the east. 

I ended up calling what I’d seen the Keesling well after the family who owned the land during the height of the East Central Indiana gas boom. Given its location and construction, I bet it started as a gas well that eventually cracked. That allowed water from a confined aquifer to seep in over time. Fortunately, information from the Indiana Geological & Water Survey confirms the provenance I suspected

Still, it fits the pattern. Hundreds of similar wells dot the region! Some were capped when the gas pressure faded, while others were simply forgotten and left to quietly transform into the trickling wells we stumble across today. The Keesling Well may be modest, but it’s part of a much bigger story that stretches back more than a century beneath our feet.

The Keesling Well wasn’t just another stop on my journey. In fact, it marked a double milestone. Not only was it the fortieth flowing well I’ve visited in East-Central Indiana, but it also became the thirteenth I’d found in Madison County! Still, I know there are more I haven’t been to yet.

I’m always scanning old maps, poring over comments in local history groups, and keeping my eyes peeled during every backroads drive. Every new-to-me well is a thrill, and a reminder that there’s still mystery tucked into the edges of familiar places.

Sources Cited
1 Well Events For IGWS ID: 142550 (2025). Well Record tables. The Indiana Geological & Water Survey. Indiana University. Web. Retrieved May 20, 2025.