Anyone standing on the main square will see it immediately: a vase-bearing nymph on a pedestal with four lion heads as gargoyles - the Haugsdorf fountain, built around 1850 and last renovated in 2018. What hardly anyone sees is underneath: 139 meters of borehole, layers of rock, sand and a water-bearing vein that once supplied half the community. "Die Bassena", as the well was called by the locals, was once the social center of the village and is now a cozy drinking fountain for cyclists. Anyone who couldn't find anyone to play with at home simply went to the fountain - it was a reliable meeting place.
This water also supplied the village during a curious transitional phase: when construction of the Pulkautal water pipeline began in 1967, Haugsdorf was so eager that parts of the village network were completed before water flowed through the supply line. So water was drawn from the well for around five years until it reached Haugsdorf.
The statue and its detour via the garbage dump:
In those years, the fountain statue was removed and disposed of in a garbage dump. Josef Aufgewekt discovered it there and placed it in his castle courtyard. The municipality eventually reclaimed it - and the nymph returned to its original place on the main square.
Info: What is an artesian well?
Groundwater lies deep underground, trapped between layers of rock that are impermeable to water. If these layers are shaped like a basin and the water is fed from a higher catchment area, it is under natural pressure - similar to a compressed water bottle. If you drill through the upper rock layer in the right place, the water rises automatically, sometimes all the way to the surface. You don't have to pump it: the pressure does the work. This is exactly what makes an artesian well special - and the location of its borehole a science.