The director of Public Utilities in St. Louis offered a Fox2 reporter in St. Louis a rare inside look at one of the century-old water intake towers near the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge.
The Old Chain of Rocks Bridge carried Route 66 from Illinois into St. Louis until it was turned into a pedestrian and bicycle trail about 15 years ago. The castle-like intake towers long provided water for the city.
Curt Skouby provided some history of water intake tower No. 2:
“Henry Kiel was mayor at the time. These structures are intake towers that bring water into the plant,” he says. “They’re basically structured around a tube that drops water all the way down into a tunnel that flows into our low service wild water pump station that pumps water into our treatment plant. […]
‘Yes, it’s cut into the rock approximately 70-feet down, slopped toward the pump station,” says Skouby.
Up until the 1920s, crews would camp out for days inside this four-story building, making sure the tubes in this intake tower were working properly.
According to the City of St. Louis website, the intake tower No. 2 is no longer operating, but serves as a backup system for when the current intake system goes down. The tower was designated a city landmark in 1971.
A gallery of the tower’s inside can be viewed here.
(Hat tip to Jeff Meyer; image of the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge and water intake tower No. 2 by cmh2315fl via Flickr)
Very cool! I always wondered what those were like inside.
Thanks for this story — I’ve been looking at the exterior of those towers for decades and always wanted to get inside. As for drinking the coffee-colored Mississippi water…. Some years ago the rumor was that any ambulance that picked up someone who had fallen into the Mississippi headed directly to the nearest hospital to have the victim’s stomach pumped. Maybe that was only a rumor.. Or was it???
Love these structures. Nice to have a brief look inside.