at 608 North Court Street, was built in 1886 as part of a new city water works system installed by the A H Howland Company of Boston, in contract with Montgomery Mayor Warren S. Reese. The system included the 100-foot tall standpipe tank located on a city hi-point on Monroe, near Jackson Street. The standpipe was demolished in 1990, but until then it was a Montgomery landmark –it even held the sole WSFA-TV remote camera (construction of the RSA Union ruined the camera view). The tank can be seen in the 1975 aerial of the Capitol Complex below (marked number 9). In its heyday, the building pictured above, with its intricate terra cotta frieze and arch windows, was the pride of Montgomery. My wife’s great grandfather, Robert West, a renowned tinkerer inventor, is said by her cousins to have been the Chief Engineer of the Water Works back then, and they give him credit for the 1886 system.

Robert West,left, was an inveterate inventor-tinkerer, who had a knack to make machinery run. At age 24 he owned and operated a grist mill in Tennessee. His improved version of a gas light fixture brought him to Eufaula, Alabama. His knowledge of mill operations led him to Columbus, Georgia, and then to Montgomery. In 1885 his machinery skill was said to be the factor that enabled Montgomery to successfully operate the world’s first electric street car system.  A year later he was chief engineer of the City Water Works, and kept that new system running.

-Charles Humphries