Built in 1885, this 100,000-gallon cypress water tower served Illinois Central Railroad steam engines until 1953. In 1960, the City of Kinmundy purchased the tower, pump station, and lake from the railroad and continued using the lake and tower as a source of city water until 2000, when a new lake was put in. After 115 years of continuous service, the tower was abandoned. As one of the few remaining such structures in the United States and the only one to have been used continuously for over 100 years, the water tower and pump station were placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the US Department of the Interior on November 12, 1998. The State of Illinois and the City of Kinmundy shared the $126,000 cost of renovation, using 70 percent of the original materials in the preservation.