Route 66 - The Leaning Water Tower

Traveling down Route 66 near Groom, Texas, it's hard to miss the famous leaning water tower. Originally, it was a functioning water tower, but was slated to be demolished. Ralph Britten bought it and moved it close to his truck stop as an advertising gimmick. A lot of stories have been told about the water tower. Some of the more persistent have been that a tornado almost blew it over or that a sink hole opened up under one of the legs or that a bunch of high school boys hooked up their cars one night and tried to pull it over as a prank. None of these are true. Actually, Ralph installed leaning to one side simply to attract attention to his business which was located behind the tower. Tons of concrete buried underground offsets the weight distribution to keep it steady. The tower has outlasted the truck stop which suffered a fire a few years ago and has been boarded up and vacant ever since. Every year at Christmas, the town tops the tower with a brightly lit star.

See the full write-up at our sister site www.1dustytrack.blogspot.com.