The Louisville Water Tower was built in 1860 as part of the city waterworks and designed by Theodore R. Scowden. It stands on a hill by the Ohio River, and its main column rises 183 feet above a Corinthian portico.
It was dressed up to look like a Greek temple, with ten painted cast-zinc statues above the first-level balustrade. On March 27, 1890, a tornado destroyed the original wood-paneled shaft and all but two of the ten statues. The shaft was rebuilt in cast iron.
The original tower stopped pumping in 1909, after a new station and reservoirs were built in Crescent Hill. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1971, and the Louisville WaterWorks Museum opened on the site in 2014.