Warr Acres water tower

[rezman]

A while back, I posted a thread in the open topic section about converting old 35mm slides to digital files. I did about a 100 just to see what I would get, and am pretty happy so far.

Here's some from about 1971 when the Warr Acres water tower was torn down. It was located at 50th & Grove in Warr Acres. As I recall as the tower was being torn, it was supposed fall to the east, into the vacant portion of the lot in which it stood. Unfortunately, it fell to the west, crushing the fence and private property in the back yard of the adjacent residence, and also took down utility lines and poles. I was at home only a few blocks away at the time watching TV when there was a loud boom, and the power went out. After going outside to see what it was, we found out that the water tower "fell down". All the neighborhood kids raced over to have a look. My oldest brother took these photos with my dad's camera.

Don't know if anyone out there remembers this, but it was quite a sight for this youngster. Quite a difference in the area between then and now.

Pete, I accidently put a photo in there that has a private residence address, and I tried to remove it, but was able to.

[Pete]

Very cool!

I lived just north of 63rd but we used to take our Labs to the lake on that 50th & Grove property.

I vaguely remember the water tower. But I didn't start PC until 1975, so it was already long gone.

Thanks very much for sharing this.

[Joe Kimball]

Crazy. My fantasy football team was called "The Warr Acres Water Tower" because it was a random name based on a small town's unlikely mascot. I never knew of a one-time tower that was disastrously torn down.

Why was it dismantled, anyway?

[rezman]

The tower was a product of the original Warr Acres/Putnam City area. Not sure of when it was built but I would guess somewhere in the 30’s or early 40’s. It was no longer being used as most of Warr Acres was tied into the Oklahoma City water supply by then. Why the decision was made to tear it down, I don’t know. The lot still sits vacant to this day, with the Marco’s Pizza built right next to it.