Lenawee County history: Addison water tower a rare relic from yesteryear
When I drove through Addison on Sunday, I passed by the village water tower and idly wondered when the new tower will be constructed and the old one taken down.
Earlier this year, the village received about $4 million to replace its aging water system, which includes the replacement of the current water tower, a 110-foot-tall standpipe built in 1952-53.
Normally, I don't give water towers much thought. They are in many small-town American villages and cities that rely on gravity to push water to every point in town.
However, Addison's standpipe is of a design seldom seen. I have done my fair share of traveling, and I tend to make mental notes of interesting or unusual structures. I have never seen another standpipe water tower, and if reference sourcing on Wikipedia can be trusted, there is good reason for that.
According to various entries and references points on the virtual encyclopedia, there were, at one time, more than 400 standpipe water towers across the United States. As of a decade ago, when the most thorough research was last updated, about a dozen active ones remained. They were popular in the early 1900s, but they were traded for the more familiar tanks on supports or bulbous designs. A search online for standpipe water towers indeed yields few results.
Addison's tower was originally painted a metallic gray, but at some point, its color changed from dull steel to robin egg blue. At night, a red lamp atop the cap winked to alert planes and helicopters of its existence. The village name has been painted at the top on the west-northwest side for as long as I can remember, and in 1984, to celebrate the village's sesquicentennial, the years "1834-1984" was added. For 60 years, the tower has been a visual landmark in all directions. In the winter, it can be seen for several miles; in Hillsdale County, where Addison Road ends at Milnes Road more than 12 miles away, atop the hill, the tower rises above the trees like a thin, blue pencil.
Today, its days are numbered. While it sits on the highest point in Addison, enabling it to work through gravity, the tower will be replaced with a modern, white bulb structure similar to the ones in Hudson or Tecumseh. The hill is large enough for the new one to be constructed and the old to then be drained and dismantled. Painting maintenance stopped on it several years ago, when the company tasked with its upkeep went out of business and the writing was on the wall that the entire structure would need to be replaced.
A decade ago, the tower was drained for maintenance, and I poked my head into the access hatch at the base to see what the inside looked like. I was never really curious as to how the interior was designed, but a few scenarios played through my head as I approached the hatch and a thin stream of water poured from it. Were there pipes, catwalks, ladders, lurking monsters?
The answer was "none of the above." It is just an empty tube, with rust-colored walls.
History exists because things change. In my lifetime, I have seen much change in my hometown and across Lenawee County. As I drove home, I used the new, two-lane roundabout at what locals call "High Point," where U.S. 223 and U.S. 127 converge. People are clearly still getting used to it, as it is the first of its kind in Lenawee County, the others in Adrian and Raisin Township being the one-lane variety.
While the roundabout will not likely be the last of its kind, it stands to reason the old standpipe that is the Addison water tower will never again be duplicated, a design relic of an age rapidly fading from existence across the country.
— Dan Cherry is a Lenawee County historian.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Lenawee County history: Addison standpipe water tower
