Sitting (or should I say standing?) along the Ohio River in Louisville, KY is a rather unusual National Historic Landmark. The 185-foot-tall Louisville Water Tower is the oldest ornamental water tower in the world! That’s really something to brag about!
Now, you might wonder why anyone would want to visit a water tower that can be seen from a distance. The truth is you can’t appreciate its beauty until you are up close, and you can’t appreciate the purpose and design until you take the tour. And I haven’t even mentioned the history—which as you know, I’m about to tell.
Epidemics and Pandemics, oh my!
The history of the water tower really begins with the terrible epidemics and pandemics that plagued Kentuckians in the mid-to-late 1800s. Between 1825 and 1865, Kentuckians dealt with smallpox, yellow fever, typhoid fever, measles, scarlet fever, dysentery, tuberculosis, and malaria—just to name a few.
Many of these epidemics hit cities the hardest and Louisville was one of those. In 1810, Louisville’s population had grown to 1,357 people. When the malaria epidemic of 1822 hit the city, one-fourth of the population was sick and over 140 people died. During the cholera epidemics of 1832-1835 and 1849-1851, five to ten percent of the population died during each outbreak. By 1850, Louisville had grown to the 10th largest city in the nation with 43,000+ people and to a population of 68,000 by 1860. These illnesses were killing so many people in the city that Louisville became known as “The Graveyard of the West.” Now, that is not something to brag about! (Many deaths during this time led to the establishment of a “city cemetery” that we know today as Cave Hill.)
Necessity is the Mother of Invention
Needless to say, clean water and waste management became a serious priority, not just for Louisville but for all big cities. It didn’t happen overnight, however.
Let’s now take a look at a few men who brought the Louisville Water Tower & Pumping Station to reality which then led us to the creation of the Crescent Hill Reservoir.
Theodore Ransom Scowden (1815 – 1881)
Theodore Scowden was born in 1815 in Pittsburg, PA, and educated at Augusta College in Kentucky. He began his career in the steam engine business in Cincinnati and even worked as a steamboat engineer traveling between Cincinnati and New Orleans for some time. In 1844, he became the engineer of Cincinnati Water Works where he designed and built their new water system. Then in 1851, he traveled to England and France with engine builder Anthony Harkness to study waterworks. Upon return to the U.S., he moved on to Cleveland, OH, and finally to Louisville building water systems in both cities.
In 1857, Scowden became the Chief Engineer for the Louisville Water Company and was assisted by Charles Hermany.
Charles Hermany (1830 – 1908)
Charles Hermany was born on October 9, 1830, in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. At the age of 23, Hermany moved to Cleveland, Ohio where he was hired by Theodore Scowden. When Scowden later moved to Louisville, Hermany followed him to be his personal assistant at the Louisville Water Company.
In 1861, Hermany was promoted to Chief Engineer of the Louisville Water Company. In 1866, Hermany proposed a filter system that used a subsiding reservoir and filter beds. This led to the 1879 Crescent Hill Reservoir & Gatehouse. Hermany was also responsible for building Pumping Station #2 and had a hand in the design of the Leavitt-Hermany Steam pump Engine used inside. In addition, Charles Hermany founded the Louisville Engineers & Architect Club. He served as the club’s president for five consecutive terms.
Now that you know a little about the men, let’s take a look at what they accomplished while at the Louisville Water Company.
Louisville Water Tower & Pumping Station #1
While there are several structures on today’s Louisville Water Tower campus, the tower and Pumping Station #1 (the large white building) are the two original structures. Theodore Scowden designed both the tower and Pumping Station #1 in 1856 with both symbolism and function in mind.
Theodore R. Scowden, chief engineer for the Louisville Water Company, designed Pumping Station No. 1 in the Classical Revival style in 1856. The complex included an engine room and boiler house in the form of a two-story temple, three bays wide, with a tetrastyle portico and twin one-story wings. The windows, sills, and column bases are of cast iron; the capitals of terra cotta.
Library of Congress
With symbolism in mind, the Classical Revival style building was designed to resemble a Greek temple with wings on either side. Its pure white color was chosen to instill a level of trust. Future Louisville Water Company customers needed to trust and believe that clean drinkable water would be delivered to their homes from the company. (Without this trust, Louisvillians may never have given up using their free well water.) In addition, the design was meant to show beauty while masking the industrial design held within both structures.
With function in mind, the main building was 2-stories tall to hold the two enormous Cornish-beam engines “each containing a steam cylinder measuring 70 feet in diameter.” (louisvilleky.gov) The two single-story wings each held three boilers that produced high-powered steam needed to run the engines.
“In 1860, two Cornish pumps powered the original Water Works. Steam pushed down the cylinder raising the plunger to pull in water from the Ohio River. When the steam was released, the 58,000 pound plunger fell forcing 527 gallons of water up to the original reservoir [located at today’s VA hospital site] on the bluffs overlooking the pumping station.”
Louisville Water Company
The 185-foot tall water tower also combined style and function. The tower itself holds a 169′ high standpipe tower that was required to control the water force that was created by the giant steam engines as they pulled water from the river. The water would shoot up the standpipe allowing the pressure to lessen as it fell back to the bottom of the pipe before being piped to the reservoir. The exterior of the tower – originally wooden – “was designed in imitation of a triumphal Roman Doric column.” (Library of Congress)
The tower and pumping station finally began operations on October 16, 1860, delivering water to 512 customers through 26 miles of main pipe line. The engines within the pumping station supplied 12 million gallons of water daily (six million each), which was impressive, but still a small amount compared to the 119 million gallons of water that are supplied daily today.
Tornado Damage & Expansion
The 1890s brought change to the Louisville Water Company, first in the form of a tornado and then in the form of expansion.
Tornado Damage…
Just 30 years after beginning operations, the water tower was blown over during the March 27, 1890 “Louisville Cyclone.”
The storm destroyed dozens of residences, businesses, large stone warehouses, the railroad station and several churches. Ultimately over 100 lives were lost, and many more people were seriously injured. So localized was the path of the storm that thousands of Louisvillians went to bed that night totally unaware that disaster had struck the city. They were informed the next morning by The Courier-Journal headlines, “Louisville visited by the storm demon.”
The Filson Historical Society
The colonnade of the tower, having been built of brick, survived the storm. The standpipe and tower above the colonnade was rebuilt to match the original design. This time, however, wood was replaced with riveted plates of steel, sheet metal, and cast iron.
With the 1890 rebuild of the tower came the 10 zinc statues that many people are familiar with today. The J.W. Fiske Company, located in New York, designed and installed 9 mythological figures and one “Indian Hunter & Hound.” The nine mythological figures included both Greek and Roman gods and goddesses; Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Mercury, Neptune, Hebe, Danaide, and Flora. All 10 were purchased by the Louisville Water Company for $1,700. (EverGreene Architectural Arts)
…and Expansion
By 1893, the demand for water grew. Pumping Station #2 was built and new Hermany-Leavitt Pumping engines began the work of pumping 16 million gallons of water a day. The Hermany-Leavitt engine was considered the “most efficient steam pump of its day.” (Louisville Water)
The Crescent Hill Reservoir & Gatehouse
In 1895, the Louisville Water Company contacted a well-known sanitary engineer named George Warren Fuller to do research on a rapid filtration system. The hope was to produce cleaner water faster.
With the work of both Charles Hermany and George Fuller, the 1885 Crescent Hill Reservoir & Gatehouse, and the 1908 Filtration Plant came to fruition.
The Gothic-style Gatehouse – inspired by a building along the Rhine River in Germany – was designed by chief engineer Charles Hermany. The Gatehouse contained valves that controlled the flow of water in and out of the reservoir. The reservoir allowed sediment from the river to settle in the bottom before being sent to the filtration plant. The filtration plant removed all the remaining sediment and 99% of bacteria from the water. The plant took $1,889,000 to complete, but boy was it worth it! Louisville’s water has since been voted the “Best Tasting Tap Water in America.”
Usage Today
Today, the reservoir’s 110-million gallon capacity continues to be used. The reservoir holds less than a 1-day supply for the city today, but was a 2 week supply in 1879. The water flow from the reservoir to the filtration plant is no longer controlled at the gatehouse, however. Instead, the flow is controlled at the filtration plant.
The Water Tower and Pumping Station #1 continued to be used until 1910, and the original equipment was dismantled in 1911. Today, the pumping station is home to the Water Works Museum, an entertainment space, and company offices.
Restoration
- The Gatehouse at Crescent Hill Reservoir saw restoration in 2015.
- The Louisville Water Tower and Pumping Station #1 received restoration work in 2022. The last step was to return the statues to the tower, which you can see from the video, took place in February 2024. The Water Works Museum and Water Tower reopened to the public in March 2024.
Our Visit and Reflection
This visit came to be because I had been watching the progress of the renovation via the Louisville Water Tower’s social media page. Having heard multiple times that it was the oldest ornamental tower of its kind, I had to see it for myself. Yes, being a born and raised Louisvillian, I had seen the tower numerous times from the river bank as well as from the river. I had not taken a tour however, and I was eager to do so. I also made sure to schedule this tour on Crescent Hill’s Walking Wednesday, so that we could visit the tower and then drive up the hill to the Gatehouse (also on the National Register of Historic Places) when it would also be open for a visit.
We started in the morning with a tour from a lovely group of ladies at the Water Tower. We had plenty of time in the Water Works Museum (located within Pumping Station #1) before our tour started. Then we received the history of the station as we stood in the center hall where the steam engines were originally held. When you stand in the massive space you’ll feel minuscual. Then you learn that the center hall was not oversized. It had to be that large to hold the engines. They were enormous and totally filled the space! Old photographs of the pumping station are presented on foam boards throughout the space that is now used as an event space. Our tour guides answered all of our questions and led us out to the campus. We learned about the architecture of the pumping station looking at it from the outside. We then entered the water tower which allowed us to see the standpipe inside. We learned the difference between water towers and water tanks from our tour guides. This was something I never knew. Water towers were built to lessen the pressure of the water, because steam engines pumped water from the river with such force that it could actually blow the roof off of a container or bust the pipes as it traveled. Water tanks are the containers we see today on tall legs holding our water in our rural towns and on the outer edges of Jefferson County. While we have come to call them water towers, they technically are not.
From the tower, our tour continued to Pumping Station #2 where we learned about the upgrades that occurred in the 1890s. We then learned about the additional expansion into Pumping Station #3 and the change from steam to electric power. As our tour came to an end, we thanked our tour guides, snapped plenty of photos, and made our way up the hill to Crescent Hill where we were able to see inside the Gatehouse.
The Gatehouse was open on this particular Wednesday, so we were able to walk inside to see the beauty held within. There’s not much to see here other than the architecture. To have simply been a gatehouse, opening and closing the flow of water to the filtration plant, this building was just as equally about beauty as about function. It looks like a chapel from the inside! It is a true site to see, but it doesn’t take long. This part of our visit took maybe 15 minutes. You are allowed to stay on the property as long as you like. The reservoir has a wonderful concrete path around it that locals use regularly for walking and running. It is a lovely place to get in some exercise and even more lovely to get some photographs. The reservoir and gatehouse are often used as backdrops for prom and wedding photos. If you have never visited, you should certainly do so, even if the Gatehouse is not open for a visit.
Check out our additional photos below! You know I take more than I need, but I simply can’t help myself! We do hope that you’ll take time to visit the Louisville Water Tower, Pumping Station, and Crescent Hill Reservoir & Gatehouse. The beauty just shouldn’t be missed!
Until next time… Happy Travels!
Additional Resources:
Louisville Water Company, Louisville MSD, National Library of Medicine, Oxford Academic, American Water Works Association, Louisville KY Government