What’s on the Water Tower?

It may not just be plain paint; it could be a unique
piece of art. What’s on the Water Tower?

BY LUANNE AUSTIN
PHOTOS BY HOLLY MARCUS

Looming above the highway along Interstate 81 in Shenandoah County, a huge sphere gives drivers the impression there’s a hot-air balloon hovering over the town of Edinburg. Light as it appears, the gaily-striped globe is actually the town’s half-million-gallon water tower.

When the tower was erected 10 years ago, townspeople commented that it appeared to be rising up out of the trees. “They said it looked like a balloon,” says Edinburg’s mayor/manager, Dan Harshman. So they decided to paint it to look like one. “We’re always shocked at how visible it is,” he says. As a matter of fact, on the wall of the town council chambers, they tacked up a letter from a man who wrote that the tower brought a smile to his face every time he drove by. The man was from the neighboring town of Mount Jackson. A bit ironic, since three years later, Mount Jackson residents decided to get artsy with the new water tower they were putting up.

While Edinburg’s balloon has a faded ole-time look, Mount Jackson’s basket of apples is bright and striking. Mount Jackson’s town manager, Charles Moore, says they get letters from all over the country commenting on the water tower’s art. They even got one from a New Jersey couple that included a self-addressed, stamped envelope. “They argued about how it was done all the way home, whether it was painted this way or that,” says Moore.

Stuck on You

As it turns out, neither the husband nor wife was right. It was done with decals.

That’s right. The 200-foot by 4-foot decals were taken from a photograph of Bowman apples in a basket. The apples are courtesy of Bowman Apple Products Co. Inc., a Mount Jackson apple processing plant founded in 1939, and the basket is from the town’s history museum. Moore says 25 of the town’s citizens submitted sketches in a contest held for the tower’s design. The company that manufactured the decals had never done a spherical structure before and was challenged by the project, Moore says.

While painted water towers are not rare, they’re not commonplace either. Among the more artistic are the rose-covered Rosemont Water Tower in Rosemont, Ill., and the American flag tank in Cocoa, Fla. Two hot-air balloons, similar to Edinburg’s, tower over the town of Anderson, S.C. Two ground-level tanks in Placerville, Calif., feature full-size scrub oak trees and brown grass, both native to the area. Two elevated water towers in Granger, Iowa, are labeled “hot” and “cold.” Still other water towers resemble the town of Woodstock’s, which proudly displays the town’s name on the I-81 corridor. This tank is built in a “hydropillar” style, with a wide base that can accommodate a variety of uses.

Practical, but Pretty

Water towers serve a vital purpose in creating secure storage and water pressure to municipalities. Without water towers, water may not spray from a tap with sufficient flow and water may not reach the top floors of a building. Water towers can supply water even during power outages since they rely on gravity, not electricity, to push the water through pipes. They can’t do this indefinitely though, since pumps are used to fill the elevated tanks. Also, water towers serve as reservoirs to help with water needs during peak usage time. Some towns let the water fall during the day and fill the tank up again at night.

Painting the tank serves a practical purpose, protecting the steel—and, by extension, the water supply—from the elements. “It has to be painted somehow,” says Moore. “Why not make it pretty?”