A TIME EXISTED WHEN I PAID minimal attention to water towers. They all looked the same. Simple silver metal structures rising on leggy supports above prairie towns, dwarfed only by grain elevators.
Through the decades, those standard water towers have mostly vanished, replaced by more modern holding tanks. I understand the need to upgrade, to improve, to advance. Communities grow. Needs change. My city of Faribault is currently planning a new water tower, which will be visible from Interstate 35. If Faribault ever housed a simple metal tower, it was long before I moved here.
But in the small town of Deerwood in Crow Wing County, a vintage water tower still stands, by a city park with picnic shelter and splash pad, near an apartment complex, next to the fire station and across the street from the historic Deerwood Auditorium (city hall and police department).
Randy and I discovered the 1914 water tower when we stopped for a picnic lunch en route to a family lake cabin on a Saturday afternoon in July. Previous drives north, we drove right through Deerwood without pause. In a hurry to get to our destination.
That’s problematic. That word, hurry. By hurrying, we too often miss simple delights. Like the historic Deerwood water tower.
I grabbed my camera to photograph the tower, attempting to document it from multiple perspectives. Architecturally. Artistically. Historically.
Upon later researching the Deerwood water tower, built by the Des Moines Bridge & Iron Co., I learned it is one of five such Cuyuna Iron Range water towers on the National Register of Historic Places. Added in 1980, the other towers are located in Crosby, Cuyuna, Ironton and Trommaid. They are known collectively as the “Cuyuna Range Municipally-Owned Elevated Metal Water Tanks.”
The towers, erected between 1912-1918, were of historical importance in development of the Cuyuna Iron Range. Tax revenue generated from the iron ore mines funded their construction.
I appreciate that these five towns on the iron range valued their aged water towers enough to pursue and acquire historical designation. The water towers represent a time in Minnesota history. They represent, too, the architecture and art of yesteryear.
TELL ME: I’d like to hear of vintage water towers you’ve noticed and appreciate. Tell me, too, why you value them.
Please click here to read my previous post about the historic Deerwood Auditorium. And click here to read my post about the town’s deer sculpture in Elmer Park.
© Copyright 2021 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Water, essential for life. You’ve captured every perspective! Cool subject to ponder.
Thank you, Ruth.
Fun tour of water towers. I always seem to notice them when we drive someplace and there are definitely a lot of shapes and sizes.
I remember when the “new” tower was built in my hometown. It reminded me of a spaceship.
My favorite aunt was a resident of Belview, Minnesota. I remember the water tower that the town had. I could see it from the grove of trees on my Grandfather’s farm in nearby Sheridan Township. I don’t know how old it is, or if it even still exists. You can see a photo of it here: https://www.google.com/search?q=belview+minnesota&rlz=1C1OKWM_enUS863US863&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiKl5WggdnyAhUoEVkFHTHNBs8Q_AUoA3oECAEQBQ&biw=1411&bih=653#imgrc=P42rINOmrybpLM
Yup, still there if my memory is correct.
Old water towers are like your toilet. That have a float that switches on a pump that fills the tower as the water is used, in the winter the float has to be adjusted to pump more frequently. So the water doesn’t freeze in the tower. It freezes and you are done. I climbed the Belview tower many times. For that and other reasons. Franklin had a wooden tower that froze. They tried to thaw it with a blowtorch and it burned down. I think that’s irony.
Ah, the things one must do when the mayor of a small town like Belview. Thanks for enlightening me on how these old towers worked. And that story from Franklin, yes, quite ironic. Thanks for making me laugh.
Who knew??? Even water towers can be historic!
Yes, the things we learn…
Our Hackensack water tower this summer is getting a makeover with Lucette gracing the outside
That seems like a really smart marketing move. I hope you share a photo of the redone water tower.
In the small town where I was raised, the younger residents liked to climb it. Not this resident, however!
Ah, yes, I’m sure many a kid has climbed a water tower. Not me either.