Local Historic Sites
THE OLD CLINTON STONE WATER TOWER
Located at Herb Reffue Park, 408 High St., Clinton's historic water tower was built in 1895 by Jacob Miller, a local masonry contractor after a contract was let to Fairbanks Morse & Co. of Chicago the previous year. Constructed of native limestone, it is 59 feet high. The system was put into operation in 1896. The tower is one of two stone water towers in Rock County, the second being located in Beloit.ย (map)
WATER FACILITIES (c.1914)
Water Works owned and operated by village, originally installed 1897
One Gould duplex deep well pump, size 44" x 24" capacity 80 gals, per min., drawing from driven well 12 x 5x 966 and discharging into concrete reservoir SIZE Oลน x 32 capacity 63,166 gallons
Gould simple triplex pump, size 5x8, drawing from reservoir and discharging into 60,000 gal gravity tank elevated 60' on stone base on an elevation 70' above business section, pressure 50lbs, cannot pump direct
Three miles of 4"-8" cast iron mains, 32 double hydrants
Average daily consumption 35000 gals
Tiffany Stone Bridge
(Also known as Chicago and Northwestern Railway Bridge No. 128)This railroad viaduct over Turtle Creek is one of Wisconsinโs few surviving stone bridges. Known locally as the Tiffany Bridge, after a hamlet just to the west, it is a magnificent structure, 387ยฝ feet long, built of quarry-faced limestone blocks. Each of its five arches spans 50 feet and has a radius of 26ยฝ feet.ย
John Watson, a contractor in Janesville who specialized in bridges and tunnels, built the span in 1869. As the Historic American Engineering Record describes:ย
"The Tiffany Stone Bridge is the oldest remaining stone arch bridge in the State of Wisconsin. It is an excellent representative example of the stonework done by the Chicago & North Western Railway and is, by far, the most impressive stone arch railroad bridge in the State. The bridge was designed by Van Mienan, the chief engineer for the railroad company, who modeled it after a stone arch bridge in Compiegne, France."ย
The rugged stone used in the spandrels of the arches was quarried near Waupun and Green Bay and sent rough to the site, where workers cut it by hand. A corbeled cornice--four stepped courses of limestone blocks, topped by a stone cap--surmounts the arches. The piles below the limestone piers are battered on the downstream side to resist the force of the waterโs flow. Upstream, they are deeply offset to resist the lateral pressure of the creek. The arches were reinforced with steel rods and concrete in the 1930s, enabling the bridge to bear the weight of modern locomotives that weigh nearly six times more than steam engines did in 1869.ย ย
Located at Turtle Creek Parkway, 6528 South Smith Road, Clinton, WIย (map)
