Two aging water towers on UConn’s Storrs campus are being taken down this summer and replaced with a new one million-gallon water tank. The older of the two towers to be removed held 300,000 gallons and was originally constructed in 1914.

“The older tower was built before America’s entry into the First World War and is held together with rivets because it pre-dates modern welding,” says John Warner, a staff member in UConn’s Department of Architectural and Engineering Services.

The other, constructed in the 1930s, is a 600,000-gallon tank and is topped by a roughly 80 year-old lookout tower that was used to spot fires on campus and throughout the region until the mid-1960s. The University is working to remove the fire lookout and give it to the state Department of Environmental Protection’s fire suppression division. The DEP is evaluating options for the tower, one of which is displaying it in a museum. According to the Forest Fire Lookout Association, the fire tower is one of only a small number left on the East Coast.

“It’s a piece of UConn’s history and we like the idea of it being preserved,” says Ernie Dore of UConn’s Facilities Department, who is a member of the association and worked to save the lookout post.

The small circular structure sits atop the tower and is surrounded by windows. A disconnected phone that was used to call in reports remains there, unused for decades.

Both towers are located between Husky Village and the Towers residence halls. A million-gallon tower that was built in 1954 stands next to them. Another million-gallon tower will be built in the same place as the towers that are being taken down.

The towers are being removed because their age makes them difficult to maintain and more prone to problems. The cost of taking them down and building a new tower will be roughly $2.5 million. The project will be funded through the UConn 2000/21st Century UConn program.