If you’ve ever walked on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge that connects St. Louis to Madison, Illinois, you probably wondered what is inside those nearby water-intake towers on the Mississippi River.
St. Louis television station KTVI provided a rare look via water intake tower No. 2:
KTVI also has a gallery of images inside one of the towers.
We’ve published stories about one of the intake towers before, but it’s such a rare look that it’s worth revisiting.
According to the City of St. Louis website, intake tower No. 2 no longer is operating but serves as a backup system for when the current intake system goes down.
However, according to the station, the City of St. Louis is planning to bring one of the towers back into service in the coming years. It remains closed to the public.
The tower was designated a city landmark in 1971.
The 5,300-foot-long bridge, built in 1929 to carry U.S. 66 from Illinois to Missouri, famously contains a 22-degree bend in the middle.
The New Chain of Rocks Bridge that carried Interstate 270 opened in 1966, and the older bridge closed four years later.
The bridge eventually was used in a key scene of 1983’s “Escape from New York.”
It appeared the span eventually would be demolished, but the costs of doing so were too prohibitive.
In 1998, Trailnet leased the bridge and spent $4.5 million to shore it up for cycling and pedestrian use. The Old Chain of Rocks Bridge was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.
(Hat tip to Jax Welborn; image of the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge and water intake tower No. 2 by cmh2315fl via Flickr)
Just as with so many public buildings of their era, the two intake towers were designed to look attractive as well as do their jobs, even if they were industrial structures. If only that could be said about their modern likes today.
This would make a great Airbnb.