Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 06/16/2016
NRHP Listing Date 08/15/2016
NRHP Reference Number 16000533
With its construction in 1914, the 147-foot-tall Manassas Water Tower signaled the community’s pivot from a small rural town to a modern city with a planned infrastructure. It arose during an era when elevated steel water tanks, first developed beginning in the 1890s, emerged as common landmarks in communities throughout the U.S. As a central component of the city’s first municipal waterworks, the Manassas tower’s 75,000-gallon capacity supported community-wide fire protection in a pressurized system, while offering residents clean, abundant water. The oldest surviving public water tower in Northern Virginia at the time of its listing, the Manassas tower conforms to a then-popular design distinguished by a conical roof, a riveted steel tank with a rounded bottom, and set atop four lattice-channel posts with diagonal tie rods. The Manassas tower was the first water tower to be individually listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register in its first 50 years.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Updated: August 22, 2022
