Walterboro Water Tower

Front inscription

This concrete water tower was built in 1915 as part of a program to improve Walterboro’s water, sewer, and electrical infrastructure. Constructed to replace a smaller water tower at the Colleton Co. Courthouse (.3 mi. W), it stands 132-feet-tall and has a capacity of 100,000 gallons. When in operation, its water supply was steam-pumped from a reservoir after being drawn from an artesian well.

Reverse inscription

In 1930, the town council had three cells added to the tower’s base and used it as a jail. In the years that followed, the tower became a Walterboro landmark. Young residents made a tradition of the climbing the tower until an exterior ladder was removed in the 1970s. The town stored water in the tower until 2009, when it was decommissioned and replaced. It is one of the last towers of its type and era that survives in S.C.