Home > Kansas > Beaumont > Beaumont St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad Water Tank, Third & D Streets, Beaumont, Butler County, KS
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Item Title
Beaumont St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad Water Tank, Third & D Streets, Beaumont, Butler County, KS
LocationThird & D Streets,
Beaumont, KS
Find maps of Beaumont, KS
Created/Published
Documentation compiled after 1933.
Notes
Survey number HABS KS-82
Unprocessed field note material exists for this structure (N850).
Building/structure dates:
1885 initial construction
Building/structure dates:
1996 subsequent work
Building/structure dates:
1998 subsequent work
0.2002
Significance: Beaumont, located on the western edge of the Kansas flinthills, was platted and deeded by Edwin Russel and his wife, Emma, on March 28th, 1881. Only four years later, due to the surge in locomotive traffic on the St. Louis San Francisco Rail Line through town, Beaumont Station was built and equipped with facilities such as a turn-table, roundhouse and water tower. The water tower was constructed in 1885 to service the steampowered locomotives, supply water for feeding stationary boilers, washing cars, cleaning floors, cleaning boilers, cooling ashes, fire protection, and similar purposes at the shops, engine house, station buildings, etc. Constructed from large, sawcut and milled cypress staves bound by steel bands, the tank has a fifty thousand gallon capacity, which is covered by a six-sided shingle roof and hoisted some forty feet into the air by eight wooden piers which rest on concrete footings. With the advent of diesel fuel locomotives, the tower became useless to the railroad but remained vital to the Beaumont community. The pump station was kept active and pipe was laid throughout the town for potable water supply. The tower held water and was in limited use until 1988. In 1989, the Beaumont community of eighty-five people formed the "Friends of the Beaumont Water Tower" in efforts to preserve the tower. Since then, the organization has succeeded in acquiring the tower from the Burlington Northern Railroad Company (1996), repaired and preserved the wooden structure and strengthened the concrete foundations (1998), and established a yearly water tower festival to raise funds and awareness for their cause. Today, the water tower represents one of the few remaining of its type in the United States, and draws many visitors from throughout the state and region.
Subjects
Water SupplyWooden BuildingsWater Tanks
Related Names
Friends Of The Beaumont Water Tower
Russell, Edwin
Russell, Emma
Martin, Andrei, Field Team
Mathias, Julia, Field Team
Pfeiffer, James, Field Team
Audrian, Ben, Delineator
Knock, Ryan, Delineator
Nichols, Katherine, Delineator
Smith, Robert, Delineator
Thorpe, Christy, Delineator
Tramba, Jonathan, Delineator
Collection
Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)
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