For the past 75 years, Dale Barnaby has needed only to look out from his front porch to see one of the most prominent landmarks along U.S. 85.
When he was a boy in school, the Nunn resident said he remembers when three of his classmates climbed up the 50,000-gallon water tank and painted weeds around words that have made the tower memorable among Weld County residents: “Watch Nunn Grow.”
Thanks to Barnaby’s and other community members’ efforts to get the tank on the state’s historic register, the black letters should be around a while longer — but soon, the tower will be sharing its air space. On Saturday, the town of Nunn will break ground on a new, 180,000-gallon water tower just a few blocks away, at Weld County roads 100 and 31.
The 150-foot tank likely won’t have the same wording painted on its side as the historic one, said Cathy Payne, Nunn town clerk. The $2.4 million project, funded by a Colorado Revolving Fund loan and grant, should be complete by the end of next year. Gina Janett, project coordinator for the new tank, said it will probably look something like a golf ball atop a narrow base.
After the original tank began to leak a few years ago, Payne said Nunn has been operating with zero water storage, which could pose a problem in the case of a fire.
Nunn also received a state historic preservation grant to contract engineers who will stabilize the old tower to ensure its message is seen by drivers along the highway for years to come.
Built in 1921, the old tower often served as a milestone for motorists, letting them know they were halfway between Greeley and Cheyenne, Wyo. Similarly, a beacon light on top of the tank used to guide planes traveling between the two cities.
For kids living in Nunn, that light told them it was time to run home, said Kahla Barnaby, Dale’s wife.
“That’s what I remember about the water tower,” said Barnaby, 86.
She said her uncle was part of the crew that helped build the tower back in the 1920s.
“It was the same company all over the U.S. building water towers,” Barnaby said.
Dale, also 86, said the old tower always had something of a presence in his life.
“We used to have games to see who had enough nerve to climb to the top of the water tower, and I was never the one that would do it,” he said.
Later, when Dale was a firefighter in Nunn, he said the tower was at the center of an emotional moment when a man climbed it and threatened to commit suicide.
Firefighters were able to talk him down, Dale said.
Kahla said she was too young to remember much more of her uncle’s experience constructing the tower, but she was still relieved to hear it was placed on the historical register in 1993.
“I’m so glad,” she said. “I was afraid they were going to take it down.”