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The topic is prompted by York’s “hot air balloon” water tower adjacent to the Highway 81 - Interstate 80 intersection. (WMC6A at waymarking.com.) { A majority of the links on this page are designed to open in a new window. A pop-up blocker program may prevent them from opening. } (Bypass the Introduction) |  |
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INTRODUCTION Many people who travel Interstate 80 across Nebraska notice York’s “hot air balloon” water tower adjacent to the Interstate 80 / Highway 81 intersection . The tower was built to insure an adequate water supply and steady water pressure for the businesses clustered around the interchange. The original construction contract called for it to be painted buff with “YORK” in blue — the York High
The “balloon” water tower has become a local landmark and its image is widely used as a symbol of local identity.
The list below comprises a selection of “artistic” water towers similar to York’s . They have some web presence to explain their appearance, or are ones we’ve seen personally. |
We’ve not included some very famous historic inner city water towers like the Chicago , Louisville, KY, and Saint Louis, MO structures in this survey. We also left out several less well known historic water towers like the Lawson Tower in Scituate, Massachusetts, the turreted tower at the Kalamazoo State Hospital, the half-timbered pseudo-castle water tower at Indian Hill (Cincinnati) Ohio, the historic water tower used in Riverside, Illinois’ community logo, the tourist attraction water tower at St. Mary’s, Ontario, Canada, and a Ypsilanti, MI landmark.
A google search for “surf water tower” turned up a high rise rental in California.
Folks are motivated to list water towers on their web sites for various reasons. Consider these:
- Artistic Water Tanks is an Oct. 31, 2007 blog entry at “CrookedBrains.”
- Canadian Water Towers and Standpipes was founded by Mark Visser of Burlington, Ontario. In summer 2006, it included three notable towers at Fort Sasketchewan, Alberta, Perth-Andover, New Brunswick, and Pembroke, Ontario among the more common types.
- Decorated Water Towers — a “TRIPOD” member site that includes annoying popups, but has several nice stories including some advertising towers which have since been destroyed.
- A Look at Water Towers from the Summer 1997 edition of the Minnesota Department of Health’s Waterline highlights several Minnesota towers.
- OHIO BARNS includes links to “artistic” and “historically significant” water towers. Each tower has a separate page including longitude and latitude (for the GPS enabled). This extensive list includes many towers found in other lists.
- Smiley Water Towers list from “Roadside America.” “Roadside America” collects all kinds of quirky snippets of information about unusual things to be found along our nation’s highways and byways.
- The Steel Plate Fabricators Association - Steel Tank Institute has a “fabricator locator” and links to photos of recent award winning tanks including some water towers.
- Texas Water Towers features small town towers, and doesn’t single out “artistic” ones.
- Waymarking.com’s Water Towers category ranges world wide, and is growing rapidly. Each Waymark entry provides a locator map and geographic coordinates. Waymarking did not exist when we started this web page in the early 1990s; it started in 2005. Kilgore Memorial Library joined in 2009.
- This watertowers blog emanates from the Carolinas.
- Watertowers.com (no hyphen) takes a broad approach to the topic.
- Water-Towers.com (note hyphen) tells you how to build your own.
American Profile magazine’s “Whatta Water Tower!” by Marti Attoun was posted to the web in January, 2006.
A few of the photos in this essay were taken by Kilgore Memorial Library’s Director Stan Schulz; most of them were copied from other web sites.
This site has even come to the attention of people with intersecting interests:
- The Hot Air Balloon HQ folks requested a reciprocal link.
- The “smiley face water tower” enthusiasts can wander over to the smileycollector web site, which includes some “smiley face” water towers in its multiplicity.
| Alabama: Clanton | ||||
 | Clanton has a peach water tower. Peaches are a local product. The tower is a “copycat” of the Gaffney, South Carolina PEACHOID. | This link from the “ROADSIDE AMERICA.COM” web site notes the water tower celebrates the area’s peach production. The community’s page has a photo. | ||
| Alberta, Canada: Didsbury | ||||
 | The Disbury water tower is a standpipe on top of a hill in the middle of the local golf course. That’s why it sports a golfer mural. | The tower is featured on the tourism portion of the town’s web site. | ||
| Arkansas: Alma | ||||
 | Alma laid claim to the title “Spinach Capital of the World” because the local Allen Canning Company cannery produced most of the country’s canned spinach. Then they repainted their water tower. | This account is by a good-humored observer. | ||
| California: Kingsburg | ||||
 | This town’s Swedish settler heritage is celebrated with a community festival and a coffee pot water tower. | This California Heartland feature includes the story and a photo. The 2002 “World’s Largest” tour day 13 records a visit. | ||
| California: Sunnyvale | ||||
 | Sunnyvale’s former Libby Fruit cannery site is now an office park. The old cannery water tower painted with a ca. 1935 Libby Fruit label design is a local landmark, at 444 W. California. | This Day 6 stop on the 2002 “World’s Largest Tour.” is one impression; phoons’ fruit cocktail water tower is another. The Sunnyvale Public Library’s community history pages have some background — scroll down to 1985. | ||
| Florida: Cocoa | ||||
 | Cocoa sports a large U.S. Flag on a water tower. | The “waymarking.com” entry provides history and a map. | ||
| Florida: Lakeland | ||||
 | Lakeland, Florida has a “layer cake” water tower advertising a PUBLIX (grocery store chain), with cell phone antennas around the top representing the candles. | The waymarking.com gallery has two views. This may mark the company headquarters. | ||
| Florida: Pensacola Beach | ||||
 | Pensacola Beach’s Beach Ball water tower was in use until roughly 2005. | A March 10, 2005 item from the Gulf Breeze News noted the water tower would be maintained even though it was no longer needed for the local water system. | ||
| Florida: Plant City | ||||
 | Plant City, Florida’s strawberry water tower and an annual Strawberry Festival celebrate the large number of winter strawberries grown in the area. The water tower is located adjacent to to the Otis M. Andrews Sports Complex. on East Cherry Street. | The “waymarking” web site provides this information. | ||
| The next two pieces by St Petersburg, Florida artist Tom Stovall generated lots of local commentary. (Search “stovall mural” at the tampabay.com archives.) | ||||
| Florida: Seminole | ||||
 | The Florida Birds water tower mural by Tom Stovall in the Tampa suburb of Seminole was the topic of lively discussion in early 2006. | The “RHometown.com” page for Seminole has several views, and it appears on the Ohio Barns site as the Pelican Water Tower. | ||
| Florida: St. Petersburg | ||||
 | Tom Stovall’s “Salt Water Aquarium” mural on one St. Petersburg tower also drew comments in the wider context of public art. | The mural and the tower it graces are expensive to maintain. Meanwhile, people notice and honor the art. | ||
| Florida: Tampa | ||||
 | The old Seminole Indian Casino, near Tampa, Florida had a “water tower with an arrow through the tank” that was removed in 2002. | The story reflecting on its demise to make way for a grander casino is a “click & a scroll away” at GETHEP Click on “Roadside Distractions” in the right hand column, then scroll down to “Shot Through the Heart” toward the bottom of the FLORIDA stories. | ||
| Florida: Walt Disney World | ||||
 | The Walt Disney MGM “Earful Tower” may have never held water?? | The “Waymarking.com” Earful Tower page provides views and a succinct history. “Waymarking.com” also lists a twin near Paris, France. | ||
| Hawaii: Honolulu | ||||
 | Honolulu’s “DOLE PINEAPPLE” watertower was built to serve the company cannery in 1927. Time and altered corporate priorities resulted in the tower’s demolition in 1993. | An archived 2001 Honolulu Star-Bulletin story about the tower includes an early photo. | ||
| Illinois: Collinsville | ||||
 | The “World’s Largest Catsup Bottle” at Collinsville, Illinois is a | retired water tower that boasts its own web site! | ||
| Illinois: Joliet | ||||
 | Joliet’s Chicagoland Speedway has a water tower with side banners and a “checkered flag” color scheme. | This FLICKR(tm) photo is one view; the “waymarking.com” entry is comprehensive. | ||
| Illinois: Malden | ||||
 | Malden is a small village north of I-80 at milepost 62 in Illinois. | The village has a wikipedia(tm) entry, but no story about its water tower paint scheme. | ||
| Illinois: Metropolis (then) | ||||
 | The faded SUPERMAN(tm) image on the old Metropolis water tower was scrapped with the tower in 2003, despite local efforts to preserve it as a landmark. | Only memories of the old tower remain, but … | ||
| Illinois: Metropolis (now) | ||||
 | The “MAN OF STEEL” flies on the new water tower | in the Metropolis industrial park near I-24. | ||
| Illinois: Orland Park | ||||
 | Orland Park had a water tower that reminded someone of a golf ball on a tee, and lots of golf courses. So the tower was repainted , and “World’s Golf Center” was added below the town name. Although the tower was replaced with a larger one, and housing tracts and shopping malls outnumber golf courses, the slogan lived on … | as this 2004 Golf Illinois article attests. | ||
| Illinois: Peoria Heights | ||||
 | The Peoria Heights school colors are red, white, and blue which create a “hot air balloon” effect on one local water tower. | “Waymarking.com” has an entry. The “balloon” tower is in the “lower” part of the community; the water tower for the upper section is also an observation tower during clement weather. | ||
| Illinois: Rend Lake | ||||
 | The 27-hole Rend Lake golf course (at exit 77 on I-57 south of Mt. Vernon, IL) inspired the | “golf ball on a tee” tower seen in the golf logo on the Rend Lake.Org web site. The dimples are red circle outlines, and the tower really stands out at dawn. | ||
| Illinois: Rosemont | ||||
 | Repainted twice since its initial construction in 1982, Rosemont’s | “rose bouquet” water tower is featured in a project report by Tnemec Company who produced the finish for the last repainting. | ||
| Iowa: Adair | ||||
 | The well-known “Smiley Face” water tower at Adair was repainted early fall, 2003. | “Waymarking.com” includes this entry. A Visit Adair web site has the watertower as a page background. | ||
| Iowa: Stanton | ||||
  | Virginia Christine, the actress who played “Mrs. Olsen” in a series of coffee commercials, was a Stanton native. The town’s water tower was decorated as a Scandinavian themed coffee pot to honor their Swedish heritage and her achievements. When the town grew and they needed to expand their water supply, they added a complementary cup and saucer. | The local co-op telephone company web site has brief explanations. The Stanton Area Industrial Foundation web site has photos. | ||
| Iowa: Walcott | ||||
 | The thumbnail photo of the water tower at the IOWA-80 TRUCK STOP was taken in late evening. | The truck stop complex has its own web site. The tower’s legs appear at the edge of one panoramic view. — Another view at “waymarking.com.” | ||
| Kansas: Canton | ||||
 | The village of Canton, Kansas has two small water towers side-by-side marked “HOT” and “COLD.” | The town’s web site features them. | ||
| Kentucky: Florence | ||||
 | Florence, Kentucky built a new water tower in 1974 to serve commercial property along Interstate 75 and painted “FLORENCE MALL” on the side. When State officials called the banner illegal advertising, the “ M ” was altered to “ Y’ ”. Then the town started an annual Y’ALL FESTIVAL. | Read one version of the story at “laughing squid.” Or consult wikipedia. | ||
| Kentucky: Louisville | ||||
 | The “OLD FORESTER” water tower at Louisville, Kentucky has been called the “World’s Largest Bourbon Bottle Replica.” | The “Roadside America” tip has a couple of photos, and another appears in this account of a visit to the Brown-Forman headquarters. | ||
| Maryland: Germantown | ||||
 | A spherical hilltop water reservoir on the campus of Montgomery College in Germantown, Maryland is named the “Earthoid.” It won the 1980 Steel Plate Fabricators Association “Tank of the Year” award. | Information from waymark WM7668; the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission’s web site does not have any additional information about this water tank. | ||
| Michigan: Ann Arbor | ||||
 | One water tower at Ann Arbor, Michigan sports a “partly cloudy sky.” | It was part of Ann Arbor’s Public Art program. Ohio Barns also includes it. | ||
| Michigan: Detroit | ||||
 | The old water tower at Detroit’s zoo (Royal Oak) displays a mural of Serengeti wildlife at sunset. | The Ohio Barns listing is succinct. The mural is a repeating icon on the Detroit Zoo web site. | ||
| Michigan: West Branch | ||||
 | West Branch, Michigan went smiley — water tower .. police car .. | A smileycollector page has part of the story — The car was part of a local safety education program. | ||
| Minnesota: Lindstrom | ||||
 | The “teapot” water tower at Lindstrom, Minnesota has been maintained as a landmark even though it has not been used since 1990. | Here are a couple of views from the Lindstrom City web site. | ||
| Minnesota: Princeton | ||||
 | At Princeton, Minnesota the water tower was painted with the town name against a background of lake side woods, with the letters in a rippled reflection below. | In September 2008, the city’s economic development page shows the tower. It also appears in outline on a banner on the city’s home page. | ||
| Minnesota: Rochester | ||||
 | Rochester, Minnesota might be best known for its medical resources. But the Libby Foods plant there has its water tower designed as a large ear of corn. | The Minnesota Historical Society has this view in their “roadside architecture” gallery. | ||
| Minnesota: Sauk Rapids | ||||
 | “Rising Above the Rest” is the community motto at Sauk Rapids. | One of the community’s water towers bears a “hot air balloon” design in yellow, reds and orange, as shown in the Sauk Rapids portion of the St. Cloud Area Chamber of Commerce web site. | ||
| Missouri: Tipton | ||||
 | The 8-Ball water tower at Tipton originally recognized a local manufacturer. | This “World’s Largest” 8 Ball story will fill you in, and the Ohio Barns 8 Ball will give you GPS cordinates and a map. | ||
| Nebraska: Hartington | ||||
 | Hartington’s colorful water tower | appears in the “slide show” on the city’s home page in the summer of 2008. | ||
| Nebraska: Ogallala | ||||
 | The “UFO” water tower serves the businesses that grew up around the Interstate 80 interchange south of the Platte River. Ogallala is north of the river. | This Roadside America tip has a photo. The Area Attractions page at the Ogallala / Keith County Chamber of Commerce web site does not mention it, but it is featured on postcards sold locally. | ||
| Nebraska: Omaha | ||||
 | The former Butternut Coffee factory at 9th & Jones sported a “rooftop BUTTERNUT COFFEE can” water storage tank. | An archived article from the National Trust For Historic Preservation notes the January, 2004 fire that destroyed the entire building complex. | ||
| Nebraska: Sapp Brothers | ||||
 | SAPP BROS. Omaha, Nebraska truck stop was built at the (then) rural I-80 Exit 440 in 1971. The company moved in a second-hand water tower to insure a steady water supply and lower their fire insurance premiums. They decorated it to look like a coffee pot to draw passing truckers’ attention. The company is now a chain of truck stops and the coffee pot on a tower is the company logo. | The company’s home page includes a java script menu — click on Omaha,NE > Home to see the original tower. The company truck stop at the Junction of Highway 2 and Interstate 29 a few miles east of Nebraska City, NE has another “coffee pot water tower.” | ||
| Nebraska: York | ||||
 | Here’s the “hot air ballon” water tower that motivated this survey. The library where this web page is maintained is downtown — (WMPB9 at waymarking.com). | The “waymarking.com” entry provides several additional views; the tower’s image is incorporated in the Greater York Area Chamber of Commerce web site masthead. | ||
| New Brunswick, Canada: St. Andrews-By-The-Sea | ||||
 | The mural on St. Andrews’ hilltop water tank was painted with the assistance of local high school students. | The artist’s web site shows it along with their other work in the area; the mural is noted in a wikipedia article. | ||
| Newfoundland, Canada: Bonavista | ||||
 | Bonavista’s water tank on White Rock has three scenes reflecting the town’s history. The most prominent depicts John Cabot’s discovery of Newfoundland in 1497. | This summary is only one of the historic community’s attractions. | ||
| Ohio: Circleville | ||||
 | The community has held a pumpkin festival since 1903. | The Ohio Barns web site includes this view of Circleville’s “pumpkin” water tower . | ||
| Ohio: Madison | ||||
 | The Madison Village water tower sports carousel horses with sponsors’ names. | According to the village board’s minutes, the tower was repainted in 2004. It had to be repaired in August, 2008. Waymarking.com’s entry dates from August, 2007. | ||
| Ohio: Perrysburg | ||||
 | The water tower’s silhouettes of active people face interstate 75 / 475. | Here’s one peek from Ohio Barns, and another from a web site about Interstate 475 in Ohio. | ||
| Ontario, Canada: Wasaga Beach | ||||
 | The beach ball theme reflects the community’s summer activities on the southeast coast of Georgian Bay. | The BLASTCO web site shows the tower as an example of the company’s work. | ||
| South Carolina: Denmark | ||||
 | The water tower here has an attractive floral motif on a dark green background. | Here’s the link with two views of the tower. MAY, 2005: CAUTION — THE SITE ALSO RETURNS MANY POP-UPS! | ||
| South Carolina: Fort Mill | ||||
 | The Charlotte Knights, a farm team for the Chicago White Sox, play near by. | This Ohio Barns page shows the tower and gives its location. | ||
| South Carolina: Gaffney | ||||
 | The PEACHOID is famous. | Click here for the official story. The PEACHOID also has two “unofficial” web pages: PEACHOID | Roadside America. | ||
| Texas: Groom | ||||
 | An intentionally leaning tower in the Texas panhandle marks the site of a now-vanished truck stop. | Roadside America has an assortment of stories about its origin. This Groom, Texas entry talks about the town’s status during Route 66 days. | ||
| Texas: Lakeway | ||||
 | Lakeway, Texas on Lake Travis near Austin has a “golf ball on a tee” water tower. | It is frequently mentioned in “how to find us” directions in local business and institutional web pages, and appears in the background in a couple of photos on the Lakeway Municipal Utitlity District web site. A 2003 news release noted the tower’s repainting. This Ohio Barns page shows “in process” photos. | ||
| Texas: Luling | ||||
 | Luling’s watermelon is noted on most lists of unusual watertower paint schemes. They’ve held a watermelon festival since the early 1950s. | Visit the Watermelon Thump. The Luling Water Tower from Glass,Steel and Stone.com and Texas Escapes.com’s Luling entry have views of the water tower. | ||
| Texas: Oatmeal | ||||
 | Oatmeal, Texas did not have to do much to make their water tank evoke an oatmeal box. | Our thanks to Eric & Rebecca Rostetter in Austin, Texas for permission to share their photos. | ||
| Texas: Poteet | ||||
 | Poteet, a few miles south of San Antonio, celebrates strawberries. | The annual April Strawberry Festival sounds delicious. This account from “Texas Twisted” notes other Poteet strawberries. | ||
| Virginia: Mount Jackson | ||||
 | Mount Jackson, Virginia is in an apple-growing region of the Shenandoah River Valley — | This heritage is celebrated on the water tower noted in the “water system improvements” section of this 2002 story (scroll down past the library / museum /visitor center). This page has another view. | ||
| Virginia: Wytheville | ||||
 | The “hot air balloon” water tower at Wytheville has cables and a basket painted on the standpipe portion beneath the tank. | Here’s a postcard view from the web site of a scenic postcard sales company. The Wytheville Convention and Visitor’s Bureau uses the hot air ballon as part of their logo. | ||
| Wisconsin: Eagle | ||||
 | Eagle, Wisconsin is in the “smiley face water tower” camp. | The Eagle Business Association ’s water tower page has a story and photo along with other interesting information about the area’s history. | ||
Archived versions of this page at the “wayback machine” give some glimpse of its evolution and testify to the impermanence of web sites: | Fall 2003 | Summer 2004 | Summer 2005 | June 2006.
At least one of the old internal links has evolved into an “adult entertainment” portal.
Related topics
- DESIGN: The stories associated with individual towers sometimes include who originally proposed a design and how it was brought to fruition.
- Hennig Mural Design specializes in artistic water tower painting in the Pacific Northwest.
- Some of the special shapes noted in the OhioBarns water towers as objects links have interesting histories.
- DIRT & GRUNGE: MAY, 2005: The previous Water Tower Cleaning & Painting Company web site link that answered the question has gone bad — we’re looking for a new concise web site. In the mean time, remember that the cool water in the tanks promotes exterior condensation during hot humid weather which combined with dirt & fungus spores in the air creates an ideal medium for “crud” to flourish. Fungus resistant paint can only delay the process.
Want to help grow this exploration of the where and why of “artistic” water towers? ~ We have looked for stories related to the towers listed in the other sites. We’ve tried searches combining the locality name and the term “water tower” with a word descriptive of the paint scheme.
If you know of towers not included, and the stories that explain them, e-mail us the information including the URL for information about the tower and photo. We’ll follow up as time allows.