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F. J. Turner High School

Public high schools in WisconsinSchools in Rock County, WisconsinWisconsin school stubs

F. J. Turner High School is a high school located in the Town of Beloit in Rock County, Wisconsin, and is part of the Beloit Turner School District. The school was named after frontiersman Frederick Jackson Turner. It has 470 students in grades 9 through 12. The school's athletic teams compete in the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association. The mascot is the Turner Trojan. Their rivals include the Clinton Cougars and the Jefferson Eagles.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article F. J. Turner High School (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

F. J. Turner High School
South Flack Road, Town of Beloit

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N 42.555 ° E -89.0196 °
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Turner Middle and High School

South Flack Road
53511 Town of Beloit
Wisconsin, United States
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Beloit water tower
Beloit water tower

The Beloit water tower is a historic octagonal limestone water tower completed in 1889 in Beloit, Wisconsin.In Beloit's younger days, the city's fire protection consisted of two volunteer companies with hoses and mobile pumps that drew water from the Rock River and from private wells and cisterns. Several businesses burned just beyond reach of the hoses and finally in 1884 St. Thomas Catholic and Baptist churches went up in flames. Beyond fire protection, a source of clean drinking water would reduce the risk of diseases like diphtheria and typhoid fever. The rough-edged community debated for years whether a better water supply should be city-owned or a private enterprise.Finally in 1885 a consortium of local businessmen agreed to finance a private water works project. The financiers were: C.H. Morse, W.H. Wheeler, J.B. Peet, E.C. Allen, C.B. Salmon, and C.H. Parker. They hired Fairbanks, Morse Co. of Chicago to design the system, and J.B. Kinley designed the tower. It sits on one of the high points of town, with limestone walls 36 feet tall. The walls are octagonal, 36 feet in diameter at the base with walls eight feet thick. As the walls rise, they taper in four stages with the top stage 30 feet in diameter. Lancet-arched windows let light into the tower. Originally, a tank 20 feet deep sat atop the tower, built of 3-inch cypress and holding 100,000 gallons of water. A pumping station was built just southwest of the tower, powered by steam-operated Smith and Vale pumps. The resulting system could shoot a two-inch stream of water 130 feet high. Seven miles of water mains were laid through the city feeding 72 hydrants. For the fire protection, the city paid a tax to the consortium. The water-works also tried to entice homeowners to give up their private wells and switch to city water, offering free pipe to the curb for the first 100 patrons.In 1914 the cypress tank collapsed. The water-works replaced it with a metal tank of the same size, built by the Eclipse Wind Mill Company, right in Beloit. On top of the tank was a cupola, and a flag pole on top of that.By 1929 the water system served 25,000 customers, but the tower was outdated. A modern (for the time) steel tower was built nearby, with a 200,000 gallon tank. The metal tank was removed from the old tower, the stairs inside were removed, and demolition of the stone walls began, but the walls were well-built, and demolition was deemed too expensive. After demolition was given up, a Beloit Daily News article stated that the tower was "once regarded as the finest piece of masonry in the west". In 1983 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.Now, the stone water tower is a visible community landmark offering excellent photo opportunities for camera buffs. The area surrounding the tower has been developed into Water Tower Park with an ADA accessible walkway. The Water Works Pump House has been completely restored and currently houses the City of Beloit Parks and Leisure Services offices and Friends of Riverfront offices. Also, visitors are welcome to stop in during business hours. The Shingle Style pump house at the base of the bluff now acts as the Beloit Visitor Center.

City of Beloit Waterworks and Pump Station
City of Beloit Waterworks and Pump Station

The City of Beloit Waterworks and Pump Station was built in 1885 in Beloit, Wisconsin just below a hill on top of which sits the Beloit Water Tower. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.Beloit was first settled in 1836, and the city incorporated in 1856. In those early years, fire fighters had to draw water from private wells and cisterns, which were often inadequate, resulting in lost buildings. Also, diphtheria and typhoid fever were around, transmitted through contaminated water. Both problems could be addressed by a public waterworks system. Many agreed on that, but they debated whether it should a public project owned by the city, or a private for-profit venture.About 1885, two of the city's manufacturing companies expanded: the Eclipse Wind Engine Company (later Fairbanks-Morse), and the Beloit Iron Works. With those factories and the accompanying population growth, the citizens approved a privately-owned water utility, with the city paying a tax for use of fire hydrants and the public paying a charge per faucet. The Beloit Water Company was formed, and built the pump station which is the subject of this article.In 1885 the company built the pump station and the concrete reservoir. The reservoir is 40 feet by 115 feet by three feet high, built into the hill. The station is 1.5 stories with a clipped gable roof. Walls are red brick with shallow segmental arches above most windows. The main entrance is protected by a shed-roofed porch supported by columns. A balcony originally protruded above and beside the porch, but that has been removed. The roof was originally covered with slate. Originally the interior was divided into a pump room on the west, a boiler room in the middle, and a room for coal storage on the east.The Beloit Water Company also laid over seven miles of mains and installed 72 hydrants on both sides of the Rock River. The octagonal stone water tower up the hill was added to the system in 1889. It supported a 100,000 gallon cypress tank which held the water. With that, the pumping station could periodically feed water into the tank, and gravity supplied constant water pressure from the tank to homes and businesses. When there was a fire, the pumping station fed directly into the mains and hydrants to supply the fire-fighting equipment more than twice the pressure of the water tower.In 1927 the metal water tower was built to replace the old stone and wood one. Taller than the old one, it provided water at 80 pounds per square inch as compared to 50 before. At about the same time the new pump shed was added to the complex.The NRHP nomination considers the waterworks complex significant as "the only remaining unaltered public service building in Beloit form the 19th century." It is also a symbol of the early community coming together to provide fire protection and improve the health of all citizens.