Advertisement for the Seco Portable Pumping Apparatus for cleaning sewer catch basins. Manufactured by The Springfield Engineering Company, Springfield, Ohio, circa 1920.

Source: The American City, October 1920, p. 82 (reverse side is text page 435).

Early self-powered sewer cleaning machine, 1920s.

Source: National Clay Pipe Institute.

Early sewer maintenance activities in Iowa, 1920s. The man standing in photo is Ole Bredeson, the great-grandfather of Mark S. Holstad.

Source: Mark S. Holstad, P.E., URS Corp., Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Early motor truck for cleaning sewers, Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Source: National Clay Pipe Institute.

Advertisement for Stewart sewer cleaning machine (wooden sewer rods), manufactured by W. H. Stewart, 1931.

Source: Water Works and Sewerage, Volume 78, No. 11 (November 1931), p. 15 (advertising section).

1933 photo of Harry R. Crane, founder of Flexible Sewer Rod Equipment Co., Los Angeles, California (now SRECO-Flexible). In 1932, he started to make flexible sectional steel rods with couplings for plumbers. These were soon adapted to clean municipal sewers.

Source: SRECO-Flexible Company. This website has a detailed history of their innovations in early sewer cleaning equipment.

Sewer cleaning equipment in Santa Fe Springs, California, and Beaumont, Texas, 1938.

Source: Mike Baker, Balar Equipment Corporation, Phoenix, Arizona.

Early sewer maintenance equipment, 1940s.

Source: Mike Baker, Balar Equipment Corporation, Phoenix, Arizona.