Spokane Water System, 1938

Published in 1938 by the City of Spokane's Water Department, this booklet cover showcases its signature infrastructure piece, photographed from a low angle that makes the tower's ribbed concrete shaft seem to disappear above the frame.

The tower itself had been completed seven years earlier. Designed by city engineer J.W. Robinson and built in 1931, it stands at 33rd Avenue and Lamonte Street on Spokane's South Hill, 134 feet tall and faced with eight projecting concrete pilasters — the vertical fins that give it its distinctive ribbed silhouette. Inside those fins sits an enclosed steel tank: a standpipe (a storage vessel sealed inside the tower shell, rather than perched on exposed legs as in a typical water tower). That tank holds 1.25 million gallons and was, at the time, the only enclosed standpipe in the city.

The design borrows directly from art deco — the stepped setbacks, flat ornament, and strong verticals that Spokane commercial architects were applying to office buildings and theaters during the same decade. Using that vocabulary for a concrete utility tank was an unusual civic decision; the result reads as monument rather than infrastructure. The pine trees in the foreground place it firmly on a residential hillside, which makes the contrast sharper.

By 1938, Depression-era city budgets were lean, but municipal publications like this one served a practical purpose: reporting to residents and justifying the department's work. The blue border, bold sans-serif lettering, and full-cover halftone photograph follow the graphic conventions of late-1930s civic printing — efficient production choices that also signaled institutional confidence.