The Ypsilanti Water Tower: 1890 landmark on the city's highest hill

If you’ve driven into Ypsilanti, you’ve probably seen it: a tall stone tower standing on the highest hill in town. That’s the Ypsilanti Water Tower, finished in 1890 as the centerpiece of the city’s first real waterworks. It’s about 147 feet tall, built of limestone, with walls four feet thick at the base, and it once held a 250,000-gallon tank that used gravity to push water out to homes below. Day laborers built it for about $21,000, and a few superstitious workers tucked stone crosses into the walls for protection — you can still spot one over the west door. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places and is one of Ypsilanti’s best-loved landmarks. It’s also, well, famously suggestive in shape — so much so that it won an international “most phallic building” contest run by a magazine back in 2003, and locals have some affectionate nicknames for it. Out front you’ll find a bust of Demetrios Ypsilantis, the Greek independence hero the city is named for. You can see the tower anytime from Summit Street (near the corner of Washtenaw and Cross Avenues); the inside is usually open to the public just once a year, during the Ypsilanti Heritage Festival.