KYLE GREEN The Roanoke Times

No one seems to know the exact source for the spring water that flows through this pipe on U.S. 460 in the Villamont area of Bedford County.

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It's still a mystery: the source of spring water trickling down through the white plastic pipe on U.S. 460, just east of its intersection with Tower Road in the Villamont area of Bedford County.

A sign posted by the Bedford County Health Department in the mid-1990s and updated about five years ago says the water isn't approved for drinking. But during droughts and at other times, people have been known to fill up containers of water from the spring to use for drinking, farming and landscaping.

A 1932 geological publication indicates the spring is part of a bigger one in the Roanoke area, but the history isn't clear. Ambiance stories have been written about the spring, but a true history isn't recorded.

Former health department official John Smith said he understood the spring provided water to a business called the 5th Wheel. That business closed when the Virginia Department of Highways, now VDOT, widened U.S. 460, leaving the spring in the right-of-way. The spring "has always been here, and I imagine the Indians used it," said Smith who retired in 1997.

Smith said he doesn't drink from springs. "We consider all springs unsatisfactory for drinking" because of the potential pollutants.

The department seldom tested samples from springs, because it was too difficult to get a water collection that gives "a true picture."

"I've never seen it go dry," Todd Fowler, supervisor of environmental health for the Bedford County Health Department, said of the spring.

"People go there all the time," he said. However, it was difficult to find a consumer during the recent dry spell around here.

-- JoAnne Poindexter