Who wouldn’t get a little tired and list a little after 127 years? That is how long the railway water tower has stood at Elkhorn, though it took a bit of propping up recently to keep it from falling over. Built in 1890 by the Northern Pacific Railroad, the 48,000 gallon redwood tank served the silver-mining boomtown of Elkhorn and replenished the steam locomotives that hauled out the ore and returned with critical goods.
Over the years, the ravages of time have taken a toll and in 2012 the Friends of the Elkhorn Water Tank formed to save the historic tower. With contributions from the Montana Historical Foundation and a grant from the Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association, supportive beams were placed to brace the tower.
Last week the braces came down, removed as more permanent repairs started. The conical roof was removed and proved to be beyond salvage. Workers from Heritage Timber, a Missoula firm that specializes in reclaimed wood and deconstruction, built a form inside the tower to stablize it while dismantling the structure piece by piece. First metal bands around the circumference of the top half of the tower were removed and then vertical redwood boards were lowered.
Bruce Bell, one of the project organizers, said the octagonal base will also be shored up and the effort should “truly fix and protect the structure.” Calling the water tank “a survivor in the wilderness,” Bell said saving the tank will afford “an excellent opportunity to educate children, tourists, architectural historians and railroad buffs about the effort and enterprise of those early mining and railroad pioneers.”
According to Bill Taylor, a noted Montana railway historian, the tower is believed to be the only surviving original Northern Pacific water tank of its type. Typically, the water tanks were dismantled in the 1950s and 60s after diesel locomotives replaced the steam engines.
The goal of the project, which is planned for completion this summer, is to make sure there are “straight, snug walls and a strong, water-tight roof by August 2017 to preserve the Elkhorn Water Tank for another 127 years,” said Bell.
