Specifically the last wooden railway water tower on a wooden base structure and it is located in Barry's Bay, northeast of Toronto by a couple of hours. You can find it in the town's Water Tower Park! The towers were required during the early years of railroads as the steam locomotives needed water to boil to produce steam to power the engine. The railway was also very important to Barry's Bay as the lines were busy transporting lumber in and out of the area in the early 19th century.
It is easy to understand why there aren't too many railway water towers left, firstly there aren't anymore steam trains in active service (
beyond the few tourist trains like the South Simcoe Railway) since they ended steam locomotive service in 1960, secondly a number of railway lines became unsustainable and shut down (luckily many have become recreational rail trails, or multi-use paths) and this is the case with Barry's Bay CN rail line, it ceased operations in the 1970s, the tracks were removed in 1984 and the line was converted to the JR Booth Heritage Railway Trail. This was going on throughout North America and most of the old equipment which was no longer required were allowed to fall apart or were actively destroyed for safety or development reasons.
This wooden tank was two-stories high and had a capacity of 60,000 gallons, with a shallow roof on a wood frame, held together with 14 iron hoops and lugs along the outside of the tank, all sitting on top of 12 timber posts on a concrete pad. It was actually the second tank as the first was built in 1894, dismantled and replaced in 1943, by 1964 it was unused and sold to the village in 1965 for less than $80. In 1975 it was going to be demolished due to its deteriorated condition but the community rallied for saving the tower and in 1977 it received its historical, protected designation. It took several years for the people to setup a restoration committee and finally in 2000 the Water Tower was restored and dedicated in the new park.
The park has quite a few attractions including commemorative historical plaques and a small section of rail line with a velocipede (a railway bike), a caboose (also not really used nowadays either), a wind phone memorial in addition there is a small, wooden train and an old steam tractor.
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