Grand Avenue Water Tower

The Grand Avenue Water Tower is a freestanding Corinthian column of white-painted brick and stone, 154 feet tall, rising alone from a traffic island in north St. Louis. A round, gently tapering shaft stands on a molded base and a drum-shaped plinth about twenty feet across, and is crowned by a full Corinthian capital of acanthus leaves, volutes, and rosettes worked in cast iron and stone. A small railed platform tops the capital, and the shaft is hollow, built to enclose an iron standpipe.

The Grand Avenue Water Tower, known as "Old White," was completed in 1871 to a design by the architect George I. Barnett. It was built to conceal a five-foot iron standpipe that absorbed the surge from the area's reciprocating water pumps and helped equalize the city's water pressure. Barnett gave the standpipe the form of a 154-foot Corinthian column — plinth, base, shaft, and capital — and it has been called the only perfect Corinthian column of its size in the world. The tower was taken out of water service in 1912, and aircraft warning lights were later fixed to its top. It is the oldest of St. Louis's three surviving standpipe water towers — one of only seven left in the country — and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.