Tankhouse: California's Redwood Water Towers from a Bygone Era

TANKHOUSE: California's Redwood Water Towers from a Bygone Era, by Thomas Cooper, is the only available book on these remnants of an ingenious, wind-powered domestic water system for the home and garden. Most tankhouses were built entirely of redwood: frame, siding, water tank and roof shingles. The system consisted of the tankhouse, a hand-dug well and a windmill over the well; the windmill pumped water from the well up into the redwood tank, from which it flowed by gravity pressure into the house and garden. Tankhouses date back at least to the 1850s, when California had just become a state, and perhaps before. In their day they served homes both on farms and in towns. They became obsolete in the 1930s with the advent of deep drilled wells, electric submersible pumps and modern pressure systems. Today they are an endangered species, victims of commercial, residential, industrial and agricultural development.