Read time: 4 min.

I’ve officially reached the point in life where I have favorite styles of water towers and I’ve been looking for a card to get punched. Anderson’s massive, squat tanks have impressed me for as long as I can remember, and the cheery smiley face in Markle has been a beloved roadside companion on countless trips up north. Still, nothing beats the classics- those old-school towers shaped like a cylinder topped with a cone. They’re simple, elegant, and increasingly rare. Unfortunately, Lynn’s aging water tower is probably next on the chopping block.

Early water towers weren’t the bulbous spheroids we most often see today. Rather, they were simple standpipes: tall, narrow tubes that rose beside pumping stations like oversized chimneys. As time passed, improvements in steelwork allowed communities to trade those plain pipes for sturdier metal tanks¹. The first examples were assembled with rivets, but later towers were welded. Lynn’s tower, built in 1922², is a perfect example of that era. Its witch’s hat design³ was a common sight in the early twentieth century. By the 1960s, though, a new wave of round towers took over the skyline as the shape became the modern standard⁴. 

At any rate, Lynn’s water tower is a relic from a bygone era. I don’t know what color it sported when the tank was first erected, but a paint job in 1958 converted the black tower to a jaunty aluminum⁵. It was painted again in 1967⁶, and may have taken its present appearance in 1980 after another touch-up⁷. In blue, the tower looks perfectly in place as it soars above the town of about 950.

Unfortunately, the view isn’t to last. The old water tower survived the 1986 F3 tornado that destroyed several houses and the old Lynn High School⁸, but trouble began to brew more than thirty years later: the water ran dry in 2019, thanks to a leak underneath US-27⁹. The cost to repair the broken infrastructure was far more than putting up something new for the town^10, so that’s what officials did. In August 2024, ground was broken for a new water tower a half-mile northeast of the elderly landmark¹¹. By the time I visited, it looked nearly complete. 

Late last month, Lynn locals gathered under the old water tower to take a community photo to remember it by¹². I hope they do! The town’s new tower is a functional spheroid painted the same shade of blue as its predecessor, and it even features giant letters spelling out “LYNN” on two sides! Still, it won’t be the same. 

When the old water tower finally comes down, Lynn will lose more than a piece of infrastructure; it’ll lose a familiar silhouette against the sky, a shape that generations grew up with. For me, it’s one more reminder that these old witch’s hat towers are slipping away. I’ll keep admiring the big tanks in Anderson and smiling at Markle’s cheerful face, but I’ll miss Lynn’s as I take the long way home from Richmond. Some landmarks don’t need plaques or preservation campaigns to matter. Instead, they simply stand, anchoring us to the past until the day they’re gone.

Sources Cited
1 Schmitt, E. (2018, July 23). The Shape of Water Towers: An Engineering History. Treatment Plant Operator. Web. Retrieved October 4, 2025.
2 Montgomery, G. (2025, September 24). Indiana town’s residents to gather for photo with soon-to-be-gone water tower. WISHTV [Indianapolis]. Web. Retrieved October 4, 2025. 
3 (See footnote 2). 
4 Kempe, M. (2006, September 3). New England Water Supplies – A Brief History of. Journal of the New England Water Works Association 120, no. 3. Web. Retrieved October 4, 2025. 
5 Lynn News (1958, August 16). The Richmond Palladium-Item. p. 6. 
6 Lynn Water Tower Will Be Painted (1967, August 6).  The Richmond Palladium-Item. p. 2. 
7 Tower is OK (1980, July 24). The Richmond Palladium-Item. p. 3. 
8 Haney, N. (1986, March 11). Twister Destroys Grade School. The Muncie Star. p. 1.
9 Officials say leak emptied Lynn, Indiana water tower (2019, August 7). WTHR [Indianapolis]. Web. Retrieved October 4, 2025. 
10 (See footnote 2). 
11 (See footnote 2).