The Shreveport Waterworks Pumping Station, also known as the McNeil Street Pump Station, is a historic water pumping station at 142 North Common Street in
Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the List of municipalities in Louisiana, third-most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Baton Rouge. The bulk of Shreveport is in Caddo Parish, Lo ...
. Now hosting the Shreveport Water Works Museum, it exhibits ''in situ'' a century's worth of water pumping equipment, and was the nation's last steam-powered waterworks facility when it was shut down in 1980.
It was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
in 1980, declared a
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...
in 1982, and designated as a
National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark
__NOTOC__
The following is a list of Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks as designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers since it began the program in 1964. The designation is granted to projects, structures, and sites in the United Stat ...
in 1999.
[ With .]
Description and history
The Shreveport Water Works Museum is located west of Shreveport's downtown, between North Common Avenue and Twelve Mile Bayou, which feeds into the
Red River just north of downtown. The complex consists of a group of predominantly brick buildings, which house in them a variety of pumping equipment, dating from 1892 to about 1921. The oldest buildings date to 1887, when the city contracted for the construction of a waterworks facility to replace a combination of cisterns and wells that had become inadequate to meet the city's needs. As the technology for pumping and filtering water changed, either the existing buildings were altered, or new ones built, in many cases leaving some of the older equipment in place. It saw significant changes to the plant in the first decade of the 20th century, and again after the city purchased the plant from its private operator in 1917. The city continued to operate the steam pumps through the 1970s, even as they were becoming obsolete due to advances in electric pumping engines.
The station was closed in 1980.
The property was afterward converted to a museum, featuring displays of the restored steam machinery, including pumps, filters and other equipment.
The
Shreveport Railroad Museum is located on the grounds of the Shreveport Water Works Museum. Both museums are open to the public.
See also
*
List of National Historic Landmarks in Louisiana
This is a complete list of National Historic Landmarks in Louisiana,.
The United States National Historic Landmark program is a program of the National Park Service, and recognizes structures, districts, objects, and similar resources according t ...
*
References
External links
*
Shreveport Water Works Museum- Official site
McNeill Street Pumping Station Preservation Society*
{{Caddo Parish, Louisiana
Buildings and structures in Shreveport, Louisiana
Museums in Shreveport, Louisiana
Water supply pumping stations on the National Register of Historic Places
Historic American Engineering Record in Louisiana
National Historic Landmarks in Louisiana
Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Louisiana
Buildings and structures completed in 1887
Steam museums in the United States
Former pumping stations
National Register of Historic Places in Caddo Parish, Louisiana
Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks