Columbus built this brick tower in 1883 to carry the tank that supplied water for fighting downtown fires. It took four hundred thousand bricks and the walls are three feet thick at the base, which was a reasonable specification for holding many tons of water in the air above a wooden town. Years later, when the city put in a modern pressurised water system, the tank came off the top and the tower had no remaining purpose, so the council resolved to demolish it. The dynamite failed. The walls did not move. Rather than spend more money on further attempts, the town gave up, and handed the empty tower over to a local organisation to use as a meeting hall, which is the only reason it is still standing. It has held a museum since 1962, dedicated to Confederate history and renamed the War Memorial Museum in the 2020s. The collection inside is small, and the real reason to stop is the structure itself: a round brick water tower on the corner of a small town square, of a type that has almost entirely vanished from American towns, kept here purely because it turned out to be indestructible. It stands at Spring and Milam, one block from the 1891 county courthouse, whose district courtroom is lit through a Tiffany style stained glass dome, and a short walk from the stump of the tree that court used to sit under.
Getting there
29.7055, -96.5404
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
