03/12/2026
Ypsilanti, Michigan is home to many things — Eastern Michigan University, a rich automotive history, a vibrant downtown, and one of the most accidentally and then very deliberately famous water towers in the entire United States. The Ypsilanti Water Tower was built in 1890, stands 147 feet tall, and has a shape that its original Victorian-era engineers either did not notice, refused to acknowledge, or were in on from the very beginning and took to their graves without ever saying a word. It has won. It has won multiple times. In 2003 it was voted the most ph***ic building in the world by a British travel magazine and the city of Ypsilanti accepted this honor with a grace and good humor that speaks very highly of everyone involved.
The tower has been standing in Ypsilanti for over 130 years looking exactly like this and nobody has ever successfully done anything about it because there is nothing to do about it. It is a water tower. It holds water. It is structurally sound. It is historically significant. It is on the National Register of Historic Places, which means the most ph***ic structure in the world has federal historic preservation protection and cannot be altered, modified, or in any way made to look less like what it looks like. The National Register of Historic Places has protected battlefields, presidential homes, and architectural masterpieces, and it is also currently protecting this, and that is one of the finest things the federal government has ever accidentally done.
The truly magnificent thing about the Ypsilanti Water Tower situation is the city's relationship with its own landmark over the decades. There was a period of genuine civic embarrassment followed by a period of reluctant acknowledgment followed by a period of complete and total embrace that has produced merchandise, festivals, and a tourism draw that a perfectly normal water tower would never have generated in a thousand years. People drive to Ypsilanti specifically to see this tower. They take photos with it. They buy shirts. There are postcards. Eastern Michigan University students have been posing in front of it for decades with varying levels of creativity and commitment. The tower that was supposed to just hold water ended up holding the entire city's sense of humor and doing a significantly better job at the second assignment than anyone planned.
What makes this specifically and perfectly Michigan is that Ypsilanti looked at this situation, considered its options, and decided to lean in completely and without apology, which is exactly what Michigan does with everything it has. Other cities might have quietly tried to landscape around it or distract from it with signage or simply never mentioned it in tourism materials. Ypsilanti put it on a travel guide, accepted an international award for it, and has been milking the recognition with cheerful shamelessness ever since. The tower is 134 years old, it is federally protected, it has won a global competition, and it is standing in Ypsilanti right now being exactly what it is with zero plans to change. Michigan built it. Michigan owns it. Michigan is keeping it forever.
