Replica tank house with authentic tank, completed August 2015
The Concord Historical Society’s historical campus–Galindo Home & Gardens and the Concord Museum and Event Center (CMEC)–continues to take shape! It now includes an outstanding tank house, not unlike the one that supplied the Galindo house with running water over 100 years ago.
In the days before municipal water companies and districts–especially in rural, agricultural regions like our Diablo Valley–indoor running water for sinks, toilets and bathtubs was supplied via a tank house. The tank served as an elevated reservoir of water, filled with well water by a windmill or an electric pump. When someone in the house opened a faucet, water flowed by gravity through a pipe connecting the tank to the home’s plumbing. The structure supporting the tank saw many uses: living quarters for a ranch hand, laundry equipment, storage, etc.
Our tank house sits over a well and pump that supply irrigation water for the CHS campus. The tank itself (empty) is an original one, once serving a Concord family that recently donated it to the Society.
August 2015
