Fall River Wonders: Climbing the water tower on Bedford Street

FALL RIVER – The granite water tower at the top of Bedford Street is a monument to both gravity and growth.

It is also a reminder that there was a time in the city when the future seemed glorious and assured.

The tower stands 121 feet tall and offers views for 30 miles or more from its peak. From the west window you can see well past Providence to the Central New England Highlands, halfway to the Connecticut border.

The tower was completed in 1875 and is officially known as a standpipe water tower.

It was built when Fall River was experiencing incredible growth, from 1,296 people in a sleepy farm village in 1810 to 14,026 people in 1860 at the start of the Civil War. The city grew to 26,776 in 1870, 48,961 in 1880 and 74,398 in 1890 as the city’s industrial base expanded explosively and mills grew up all along the Quequechan River.

By 1870 city leaders knew they needed to develop a water delivery system that would feed the mills, provide water to fight fires and also deliver water to city residents who relied, up until 1875, on wells.

A few waves of cholera and influenza in the mid 1800s convinced the leaders that the city had grown too large to rely on wells.

“That is the original tower, constructed in 1875,” said Terry Sullivan, the administrator of community utilities for the city. “The two original water storage tanks are in there.”

Water from North Watuppa Pond was pumped into the tanks during the night and used to supplement the city water supply during the day when demand was at its peak.

The tower surrounds two iron tanks, each about 5 feet wide, that run almost to the top of the structure.

The roof rises to the peak and is supported by eight roof rafters, each one long run of oak, six inches wide by eight inches deep.

The tower was built on the peak of Bedford Street, so water flowed by gravity through the underground pipes, maintaining the pressure of 30 to 60 pounds per square inch the mills required.

The demand, back then, was 1.5 million gallons of fresh water a day, an amount the two tanks in the tower could handle.

But the city kept growing. The population peaked at 111,963 in the 1950 census. By then, the water tower was no longer in use. It was replaced in 1939 and 1940 with the system in use now, with seven water tanks meeting the city’s water demand that averages 11 million gallons a day.

The tower and the surrounding buildings that make up the water works are built of Fall River granite. The complex was entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.

People regularly show up, asking to take pictures of the tower, according to Moe Millerick, a water department employee.

The walls inside the tower still show the signatures of some of those who worked there. Ed Buck signed his name in 1902, part of a list of others from 1926, 1932 and one name marked, 08, presumably the year ‘08 that is 111 years in the past. Windows have decorative molding surrounding them, the wood still bearing the marks of the planes that cut them into shape. The iron work that supports the circular stairs and the standpipes are rusted but still strong.

The design of the complex is credited to H.M. Wilson. A study of the complex completed in 2011 concludes the architect was probably Henry W. Wilson, a partner of Wilson Brothers & Co. architecture firm.

It is holding up well. The buildings were repaired and given new roofs in 2013. It is ready for another 145 years.

Email Kevin P. O’Connor at koconnor@heraldnews.com.