Technology created thousands of years ago for drilling water wells in China was adapted in 1859 in Venango County to create the world's first commercially successful oil well. That same method of drilling -- using a spring pole with a rope and pulley system -- is now being used again for water, this time in Uganda, courtesy of a mechanical engineer from Beaver County.

Graham Hodgetts of Baden, who owns a Pittsburgh company that builds flight simulators, has been traveling to Uganda on mission trips with Christ Church at Grove Farm in Sewickley for the last six years.

One of the greatest needs there, he said, is clean water. Most people he has visited in the Bunyoro-Kitara region of the east African country drink water out of untreated lakes and rivers. They often don't boil it, leading to sickness and disease.

"They're in terrible health because they're drinking polluted water," Hodgetts said.

A few years ago, a Florida church raised money to pay for a well to be drilled in that area of Uganda. A company in the capital, Kampala, quoted the church a price of $10,000 for digging one hole. Church members suspected the cost was too high, and they asked Hodgetts, 63, to look into it.

He found that such a project around here would cost up to $3,000, but certainly not more than three times that. It was then that Hodgetts made it his personal mission to figure out a cheaper way to bring clean water to 25,000 people living in the town of Hoima.

At first, Hodgetts, who holds 22 patents, thought he could devise an engine-driven drilling mechanism. But with few facilities in the bush area to maintain that engine, Hodgetts knew that technology couldn't be sustained.

Then he remembered a trip 10 years ago to the Drake Well Museum in Venango County.

"I retain these things," he said, "especially if I'm fascinated by them."

At the museum Hodgetts had seen a full-size, interactive replica of a spring-pole drilling device.

He did some research online about the Drake Well site and other such wells and figured out the basic design. He had a Pittsburgh company make the tip of the drill bit; he packed it in his suitcase and headed to Uganda.

The concept for drilling the well is simple: A spring pole made from eucalyptus is secured into the ground on one end and rises at a 45-degree angle. At the top of the pole is a pulley system with a rope attached that holds the 6-foot-long, 5-inch diameter drill bit. Another rope is used to move the 100-pound bit up and down through the earth.

Instead of using a foot pedal to move the bit, as was the case in the olden days, Hodgetts rigged his system to the rear axle of a Toyota pickup truck. Instead of using huge amounts of human labor, all that needs to happen for the drill to run is to put the truck in gear.

While the drilling happens, the hole is filled with water to soften the stiff and conforming clay, and when enough mud has built up, it is removed from the hole with a bailer.

Digging a 70-foot well that provides clean water for up to 1,000 people a day costs just $700 -- a far cry from the $10,000 wanted by the Ugandan company.

Digging the wells is very labor-intensive, Hodgetts said, but many of the people in the town are unemployed, and this gives them a daily wage of $2. It takes four or five men about two weeks to dig one well.

"It's been a steep learning curve," Hodgetts said.

The first well was completed in January 2003, and there are four in operation now -- three with hand pumps and one with a submersible pump. But the pace is picking up.

"They didn't do anything in the past unless I was there," Hodgetts said. "Up until this year, just this last visit, they only believed the method worked when I was there."

But in recent months, the people of Uganda have begun working on the wells themselves. They now build their own tools -- taking metal from commercial truck springs for their drill bits -- and are becoming self-reliant.

Hodgetts hopes to have 100 wells completed over the next couple years. He believes more common use of the wells will lead to a healthier population. Right now, the average life span in Uganda, which is about the same size as Oregon, is just 43 years, and there is a high infant mortality rate.

"It's a very satisfying feeling to know we're [taking] an ancient technology and bringing it to a humanitarian application," Hodgetts said.

Barbara Zolli, director at the Drake Well Museum, was thrilled to know her facility played a role in that effort.

"Museums are probably better at telling old stories than they are in being useful in contemporary problem-solving," she said. "We're trapped in modern technology. Sometimes we think there should be a complicated answer for this, and we miss the obvious. Successful, easy, simple designs are timeless."

In fact, the Ugandans were absolutely incredulous at Hodgetts' idea, he recalled.

Hodgetts and his wife, Eileen, who serves as mission director for their church, return to Uganda a couple of times each year and stay for about three weeks at a time. They will make another trip this fall, and then next year they hope to go to the mountainous southern part of Uganda, in the Pygmy area, to help those tribes dig water wells.

"It all came down to the fact I'd been up to Drake's Well and saw that spring pole," Hodgetts said.