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As the Campanile is to the greater university, the water tower is to the College of Engineering.

Completed in August 1897, the 162,000 gallon, 150 foot Marston Water Tower was designed by Anson Marston, the first dean of the College of Engineering.

It was the first steel water tower built west of the Mississippi River.

Initially, it was used by the campus waterworks department.

“Originally, the campus had its own water system and was self-sufficient, supplying its own water to the university and its buildings,” said Jeff Witt, assistant director of utilities.

“The water tower was used as a reservoir for the water and was also used to regulate the pressure in the system,” he said.

According to the College of Engineering’s Web site, http://www.eng.iastate.edu, the tower also was structurally innovative for its time.

The site states: “Anson Marston … broke all the standard rules of the day when he designed and built the ISU water tower 100 years ago” by incorporating steel rather than wood and doubling typical load requirements for the age.

Marston explained his design in the Engineers Report on Waterworks in 1897: “Eight columns were used in preference to four, in order to bring the task placed upon the metal of the tank shell in transmitting the loads to the posts well within the limits which existing structures have shown to be safe.”

After nearly 80 years of use, the tower was decommissioned in 1978 — exceeding its estimated lifespan by 30 years.

“It is just there as a landmark; it doesn’t hold any water,” Witt said. “This campus is known for it; the water tower is a landmark.”

The water tower was added to the National Register of Historic Places list in 1983 but had already begun deteriorating.

In the fall of 1987 the tower received an $80,000 face lift, which was funded by engineering alumni contributions.