The Feigel House
The Feigel house was built in 1887 by the Feigel family and is considered a landmark in Rapid City. The house is constructed entirely of hand-made bricks, in which the whole Feigel family participated. Water was hauled from a pond below the house, mixed with clay and then packed into wooden molds. The excess water was then pressed out and the bricks were left to bake in the hot sun until they were completely dry and hard. The house is as solid as when built with almost all the bricks in very good condition.
This was one of the first houses in Rapid City to have running water. When it rained or snowed, water would run down the split shake roof and into the eve spouts. From there water flowed through drain pipes to a large galvanized storage tank located in the thick roof above the kitchen. The tank holds approximately 100 gallons of water and is supported by a heavy wooden arch in the middle of the kitchen. At one end of the tank is a large overflow pipe that would drain excess water down a pipe to the cellar where it was collected in a large round brick lined cistern. In the bottom of large galvanized tank there was also a small pipe that allowed water to flow by gravity to a sink with a faucet in the kitchen. When the water tank in the roof was empty they could extract water from the cistern in the cellar using a hand pump. When needed, other means of filling the cistern was by portable tanks filled with well water or by filling buckets with water from Rapid Creek. 100 years ago the water in Rapid Creek was considered clean.
The carriage house stored carriages and buggies plus kept the horses warm and dry. The grain and hay for the horses was stored on the second floor. The cupola on the roof was used to provide light and in hot weather proved ventilation for the hay and grain to help prevent spontaneous combustion and let air circulate for the horses.