World's Largest Hand Dug Well

Greensburg, Kansas, United States

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

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A hand-dug stone-lined well in Greensburg, Kansas, begun in 1887 and 109 feet deep and 32 feet wide, with a staircase into it. Local promoters call it the world’s largest hand-dug well; Islands magazine says a well in Italy is larger.

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World's Largest Hand Dug Well

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Site-level location · 37.6039° N, 99.2953° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

The Big Well in Greensburg, Kansas, is a stone-lined shaft you can walk down, and the town has promoted it since 1939.

According to the Kansas Sampler Foundation, Jack Wheeler led a crew that put the first shovel into the ground on 9 August 1887. Over almost two years the well was dug by hand, cribbed, cased and stoned, using rock from the Medicine River and sand from Cowskin Creek, to a diameter of 32 feet, a depth of 109 feet and walls two feet thick. It was built for the town’s water and alongside a Santa Fe subsidiary railroad that needed a large supply for steam locomotives. Islands magazine, in December 2024, said teams of up to 30 men earned 50 cents a day.

The well supplied Greensburg until 1932, when another well was dug nearby. In 1939 residents put a handmade sign along the highway and began promoting it as a tourist stop, the Sampler says. In May 2007 a tornado struck Greensburg and destroyed everything above ground at the well; a new museum opened on 26 May 2012.

The billing as the world’s largest hand-dug well is contested. The Kansas Sampler calls it that; Islands says the title in fact belongs to St Patrick’s Well in Italy, while calling the Big Well the largest hand-dug well in the United States. The Sampler named it one of the 8 Wonders of Kansas.

Islands, in December 2024, described entering through the museum and visitor centre, then descending an 84-step spiral staircase into the well. The museum also holds a pallasite meteorite of about 1,000 pounds.

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In December 2024 Islands magazine described visits starting in the Big Well Museum and Visitor Center, where, Islands says, exhibits cover the tornado’s devastation and the rebuilding. It also described an 84-step spiral staircase down into the well and a roughly 1,000-pound pallasite meteorite on display.

ACCESS

The Big Well Museum and Visitor Center, 315 S. Sycamore, Greensburg, Kansas. In December 2024 Islands described the museum as the starting point for the staircase down. Check opening hours and admission with the museum.

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127 km away

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