Evansville Standpipe

The Evansville Standpipe is a historic water tower located in Evansville, Wisconsin. The 80-ft tall steel tower was built in 1901 by the Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, as part of the development of the local water supply system, spurred on by a devastating fire in 1896 that destroyed a large section of downtown Evansville. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. From the time of Evansville's settlement in 1839, water was drawn from hand-dug wells. As the row of wooden stores grew along Main Street, people became concerned about the risk of fire, but there was also a concern about cost and having government provide fire protection services. In 1872 the businessmen built two cisterns at Main and Madison for firefighting. After the Spencer House stable burned in 1877, the village board bought a $250 fire engine and formed a fire company, but a fire in 1878 proved that this engine was too small, and men instead saved the burning building with a bucket brigade. Fires in 1880 and 1882 didn't rouse the village to action, but when a fire in 1884 destroyed the Baker Manufacturing Company's factory and the Lehman Bros. furniture factory, the village agreed to invest $1500 in a fire engine which would draw water from the creek and cisterns. In 1892 the voters rejected a waterworks systems which would have aided fire protection and provided safe drinking water. In

Building data from Wikidata (CC0); heights normalised. Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).