Water towers are everywhere. You can find them overlooking a small riverfront town, like Savanna, Illinois. You can find them at the World’s Largest Truckstop in Walcott, Iowa, and sandwiched between the fire station and the public works office in suburban Ohio. You can find them atop buildings in neighborhoods all over Chicago. They serve as navigational tools, often proudly announcing their location in contrasting colors and active fonts. Painted graphics like houses or trees serve as further clues to the characteristics of a community, as does the presence of graffiti. They can be painted to look like fruit, or shaped to look like a ketchup bottle.

They also hold water! If you’re unsure about how this happens, let the City of Bloomington, Minnesota’s Public Works Department explain.

While the spheroid towers make a big impression, my favorite has to be multi-column elevated towers. The more legs one has, the more it looks like its alien inhabitants have decided to stay awhile.
Here is a sampling of water tower types from communities throughout the Midwest: