Location Shreveport, Louisiana NRHP Reference # 80001707 Opened 1887 Added to NRHP 9 May 1980 | Built 1887 Designated NHL December 17, 1982 Area 2 ha | |
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Similar Spring Street Historical, Louisiana State Exhibit M, Barksdale Global Power M, R W Norton Art Gallery, Meadows Museum of Art | ||
Tracing shreveport s growth through water the mcneill street pumping station
The Shreveport Water Works Museum, once known as the McNeil Street Pump Station, is a historic water pumping station at 142 North Common Street in Shreveport, Louisiana. A National Historic Landmark, it exhibits in situ a century's worth of water pumping equipment, and was the nation's last steam-powered waterworks facility when it was shut down in 1980. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1982.
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Description and history
The Shreveport Water Works Museum is located west of Shreveport's downtown, between North Common Avenue and Twelve Mile Bayou, which feeds into the Red River just north of downtown. The complex consists of a group of predominantly brick buildings, which house in them a variety of pumping equipment, dating from 1892 to about 1921. The oldest buildings date to 1887, when the city contracted for the construction of a waterworks facility to replace a combination of cisterns and wells that had become inadequate to meet the city's needs. As the technology for pumping and filtering water changed, either the existing buildings were altered, or new ones built, in many cases leaving some of the older equipment in place. It saw significant changes to the plant in the first decade of the 20th century, and again after the city purchased the plant from its private operator in 1917. The city continued to operate the steam pumps through the 1970s, even as they were becoming obsolete due to advances in electric pumping engines.
The station was closed in 1980. The property was afterward converted to a museum, featuring displays of the restored steam machinery, including pumps, filters and other equipment.
The Shreveport Railroad Museum is located on the grounds of the Shreveport Water Works Museum.