Do you think it is this?
If you think it is the Barnard water tower, you would be wrong, but excusably so. The structure on the horizon that looks so familiar to Barnard is, in fact, the Mahaska, Kansas water tower.
Mahaska is a community of just over 100 people located northeast of Belleville, KS. The Mahaska water tower, like Barnard's, was a WPA project. It was built in 1940. It is currently still in use. While we were looking around the tower, Jim Hunt, its caretaker arrived. He does the maintenance on the tower and his wife, a former Mahaska mayor, does its paperwork. Like me, Jim thought that Mahaska's tower was the only one left of its kind out of the three built. I told Jim that the Kansas State Historical Society is how I found out about the tower. He was unaware that the Kansas State Historical Society even knew the Mahaska tower existed.
Jim told me more about the tower. His family has been maintaining it for some time. About 1992, a fiberglass liner was added which prevents water coming into contact with the concrete and preventing chlorine from leaching into the concrete. There is evidence that previous to the fiberglass liner, there was water damage very similar to what ours has sustained. However, Mahaska has repaired the damage and continues to monitor it for new damage. The exterior of the tower has been painted to seal it and one of the windows has been covered to prevent air leakage as two furnaces run to keep it at a non-freezing temperature. There is not a separate pump house. All of those functions are housed in the tower itself. The tower was built over the original well that provided the water for the city. The current source of water is just to the north of the tower.
Mahaska citizens take great pride in their water tower. After all, it isn't every community that has such a structure. They are very proud to have such a unique structure. Shouldn't we?
One last comparison of the two towers...
Barnard
Mahaska
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