The Manning Water Tower is a historic structure located in

Manning, Iowa Manning is a city in Carroll County, Iowa, United States, along Iowa Highway 141. The population was 1,455 at the time of the 2020 census. It is named for Orlando Harrison Manning, a Lieutenant Governor of Iowa. History Prior to the city's f ...

, United States. It is significant as a good example of early 20th-century steel elevated

water tower A water tower is an elevated structure supporting a water tank constructed at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system, distribution system for potable water, and to provide emergency storage for fire protection. Water towe ...

design, and its association with Anson Marston and the

Chicago Bridge & Iron Company CB&I, originally known as Chicago Bridge & Iron Co, is a global engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm that specializes in storage solutions for infrastructure and industrial projects. CB&I was founded in 1889 and is headquartere ...

. Marston, who designed the structure, was a professor of engineering at

Iowa State College Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State be ...

. Manning native Henry J. Brunnier, who studied under Marston, convinced the city council to use one of Marston's designs rather than a less expensive standpipe. He also assisted with this water tower's design, and went on to career as a

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. Also involved in the tower's design was the Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, who built it in 1903. It replaced a pump house with a steam-powered engine and a large water tank that was built near the town's well in 1894. The water tower is tall. It has a steel tank, with a cast-iron center pipe, and four steel legs. The superstructure rests on concrete piers with

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

capstone __NOTOC__ Capstone may refer to: Architecture * Keystone (architecture), also known as a capstone Brands and enterprises * Capstone Investment Advisors, a US investment management firm * Capstone Partners, an investment banking firm * Capstone P ...

s, and the tank is capped with a

pagoda A pagoda is a tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist, but some ...

-shaped roof. The water tower was listed on 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 2016.

References

Infrastructure completed in 1903 Water towers on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa National Register of Historic Places in Carroll County, Iowa Manning, Iowa {{Iowa-bridge-struct-stub