Washburn Park Water Tower

 

Washburn Park Water Tower located at 325 Prospect Avenue, Minneapolis, MN. (1951) In the neighborhood where I grew up, Tangletown. 

Photo from the Minnesota Historical Society. 

The Washburn Tower

This photo was taken from the third floor of the school where I work. It's so hard to get a view of the Washburn Tower from street level. I just wish my camera had a zoom lens.

Photo taken January 6, 2012.

Washburn Park Water Tower Part 3

The other day I drove around the perimeter of the Tangletown neighborhood and saw for myself how really difficult it is to see the tower from street level. The tower is on the National Register of Historic Places.

(The photo is from my own collection and was taken on August 18, 2009.)

Washburn Park Water Tower Part 2

More from Wikipedia: "[Harry Wild] Jones, a well-known Minneapolis architect who also designed Butler Square and Lakewood Cemetery Chapel (both of which are in Minne-apolis), was well ahead of his time in creating the structurally-sound Washburn Park Water Tower. Along with William S. Hewett, the two men not only implemented modern hydro-engineering methods to the tower's design, but also its very own unique character. The story goes that as Jones was clearing underbrush at his home nearby, which was also in its construction phase, a giant eagle (with nearly an 8-foot wingspan) had attacked him. He had the eagle maimed, captured, and brought to town where it began attracting much attention. In part, he used the eagle's extraordinary dimensions (and the artistic skills of John Karl Daniels) to cast eight concrete look-alikes, that now sit atop the tower to watch over their former domain. In addition, eight 18-foot-tall 'Guardians of Health' were placed around the tower (one under each eagle), to prevent any bad-tasting or bad-smelling water pollutants from contaminating the water supply, which were believed to be the cause of many typhoid fever outbreaks around that time."

(The above photo is from my own collection and was taken on August 18, 2009. You can see one of the eagles at the top of the tower watching over one of the Guardians of Health.)

Washburn Park Water Tower

The tower really can be hard to see for the reasons the following article from Wikipedia gives:

"The Washburn Park Water Tower is one of 3 stone water towers built in Minneapolis during the early 20th-Century. The others are Kenwood Park Water Tower, just west of downtown, and Prospect Park Water Tower, in southeast Minneapolis. The ... [t]ower poses as a landmark of early 20th-Century architectural achievement within the Tangletown neighborhood on south Minneapolis, Minnesota, and has been doing so for nearly 75 years. Perched on top of one of the highest points in south Minneapolis, the tower is given the privilege to boast its unique location and role as an unofficial 'beacon' for incoming planes landing at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, yet remains hidden from much of the residents and visitors that pass by the base of the hill each day. This is mainly because large homes and tall oak trees scatter the hillside where the tower resides, and even more so, because of the clustered mess of streets and dead ends that compromise the towers' occupancy. Hence the name, 'Tangletown'."

(The above photo is from my own collection and was taken August 24th, 2009.)

Tangletown Neighborhood

My brothers and I grew up in the Tangletown neighborhood of south Minneapolis. The boundaries of this neighborhood neighborhhod are between Lyndale Avenue South on the west and Interstate 35W to the east, and between 46th Street on the north and 54th (Diamond Lake Road) Street on the south. The Tangletown neighborhood was formerly known as the Fuller neighborhood until 1996 when it was changed to its present name, which reflects the winding streets of the neighborhood. The Washburn Water Tower is located at the highest point in the neighborhood.