Colorado City Standpipe

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passing it right along to you. Now, if you've ever driven through Colorado City out in Mitchell County and spotted a tall steel cylinder just standing there against that wide West Texas sky, well, friend, there is a story in that iron. Way back in 1884, the town was going by the name Colorado, and the folks running the place had a problem.

A serious one. Water. You're sitting in dry West Texas, the land does not offer up a drop for free, and a town without reliable water is a town on borrowed time.

So the city's governing body did what you do when the need is real and the stakes are high. They issued waterwork bonds. In 1884.

They turned those bonds into money, and they put that money to work. They laid mains through which the city's water supply could run, and they brought in a company called Riter and Conley, all the way out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to erect a ninety-foot steel standpipe. Ninety feet.

You think about that the next time something seems tall. Now here is the part that ought to stop you cold. That standpipe, built in 1884, is still standing.

Still in use. A storage facility for emergency water needs, right here in the twenty-first century. The marker is plain about what that tower meant: the development of the city's water services was a major factor in the town's survival in that dry West Texas area.

Survival. Not comfort, not convenience. Survival.

Some things get built and forgotten. And some things get built in 1884 and just keep on doing the job.

What the marker says

In response to the need for a water supply system for Colorado, as this town was then known, the city's governing body issued waterwork bonds in 1884. The bond money was used to build this standpipe and to lay mains through which the city's water supply could run. The 90-foot steel standpipe was erected in 1884 by Riter and Conley of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and continues in use as a storage facility for emergency water needs. The development of the city's water services was a major factor in the town's survival in the dry West Texas area. (1985)