Tampa, Florida: Sulphur Springs Water Tower

Sulphur Springs Water Tower is a quick stop off 275, and visible from highway.

A public park has now been built surrounding the water tower. There are picnic tables and there's plenty of space to stretch your legs. It's right off of I-275 and easy to find.

The Richardsons also built a two-story concrete gazebo which is still at the site of the Sulphur Springs pool. The tower was built to feed a two-story arcade that would have been located along Nebraska Ave. Rumor has it that the pressure was too high and all the pipes burst, rendering the venture underwater. The pool is a gem of a spring, closed in the late 1980s as the city polluted the outlying springs/aquifer by using them as road/storm water drains.

The 214-ft. tall, castle-like Sulphur Springs Water Tower in north Tampa was built in 1927 as a centerpiece for an amusement park and a community along the Hillsborough River. Closed for decades, the city bought it last year and is making it part of a park. From the St. Petersburg Times: "The crew hired to clean up the Sulphur Springs Water Tower was ready for almost anything creepy, crawly and potentially poisonous that it could imagine. The moving ceiling was a bit surprising, though."

To serve his rapidly growing Sulphur Springs ventures, real estate promoter Josiah Richardson built a water tower along the Hillsborough River between 1925 and 1927. Constructed of poured-in-place concrete, the 210-foot tower stood over a boiling spring. An elevator carried people up the cylinder to the observation balcony, which provided a panoramic view of the river. Richardson's original hope of club rooms occupying the floors between the spring-fed base and the storage tank never materialized.

The city of Tampa purchased the property in 2002 and plans to turn the 13 acre parcel into a "passive park."