A few years ago I stopped by the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa on a trip through the area. The zoo was good, but after I left the zoo I was a bit intrigued by the castle-like tower visible up the road. The tower was all fenced off and I didn't see any signs to figure out what the tower was. When I returned home, I did some searching on the internet and was able to find out all about this mysterious tower.

It turned out that this castle-like tower is nothing more than an embellished water tower along the Hillsborough River. The water was pumped in by well and stored in the upper windowless part of the tower while the lower part of the tower with the windows had a few rooms in it. It has been abandoned for years but was recently restored a few years ago by the city of Tampa.

What I found to be even more interesting than the tower itself was the history behind why the tower was built. From what I could gather, the water tower is located on what once was the town of Sulphur Springs. Sulphur Springs was founded by a weathy businessman named Josiah Richardson who built this water tower to supply water to his town. The town started out with having a shopping area, hotels, and movie theaters. That expanded into tourist attractions like an alligator farm. Future plans called for an amusement park in Sulphur Springs. but that never happened. When the depression came in the 1920s, the future plans of Sulphur Springs fell apart and the existing town began to die.