Louisville Water Tower Park

Beautiful place to come visit and reflect on days gone past. Nice museum and informational tours. Call for hours. You won’t be disappointed!

Not your traditional «park.» Plenty of open green space. Usually used during special events (and maybe soccer games).
You are coming here either for those events or to see the cool, old, restored water tower. It is certainly worth a visit.

Come down and enjoy one of Louisville treasures. A great place for the community to come together.

I attended a large fair at the Louisville Water Tower Park Today. Normally I would only review the event, but the behavior of the actual Louisville Water Tower staff was so appalling that I truly believe that they warrant their own review.
Mid way through the event a really nasty storm with extremely strong winds and heavy rain blew in. The obvious place to take cover was the Water Tower. Even though the Water Tower was open during the fair, the Water Tower staff stopped the event patrons at the door and said that we could only enter the Water Tower if we paid $ 2 for a tour, and that if we were trying to seek safety from the storm we should do that in our car. At that time they were not actually offering tours of the tower because of the lightening and many many people had ridden their bikes to the fair and didn’t have cars to seek shelter in (the fair had been advertising free bicycle parking but $ 5 admission for cars). I event watched them turn a family with two tiny babies back out into the storm. My friend and I paid the $ 2 each to enter the Water Tower and found ourselves in a HUGE empty room that appeared large enough to house most of the people who were stuck out in the storm. There were less than 10 people in the room. Moments after paying and getting our hands stamped we were chased down by one of the Louisville Water Tower staff and made to show our stamps as proof that we were paid so that we wouldn’t be kicked out into the storm. As the storm hit we could literally hear people, including children, screaming just outside of the windows and watched as tents, giant potted plants, etc were blown over and broken. As this was occurring the Louisville Water Tower staff still kept the doors shut and did not allow these people in.
The calloused behavior of the Water Tower Museum was absolutely appalling and showed a total disregard for the safety of the event attendees. The nasty and unprofessional manner in which the staff spoke to the attendees ensured that I will never rent this venue or visit the museum.

I was in town for the marathon and decided to take the tour and it was a great tour. There is a lot of history to the facility and the tour guide gave a great 45+ min tour and answered all of my questions. Definitely a must see when visiting the city.

I haven’t been to any of the many community events held in the park, but with all the snow days this winter I was on the lookout for museums I haven’t already taken kids to and this one popped up. What’s to like? Although the museum holds a nice little collection of memorabilia, the main attraction is definitely the pump station tour. It was literally awesome to see the 50 ton retired pumps that brought water in from the river in the early 20^th century and to witness the scope of the engineering in terms of the entire building and adjoining smokestack that functioned simply to power them. But before I get carried away I must warn you that the little historical and scientific films and in the museum and most of the tour talk came off as PR for the water company. Don’t get me wrong, I learned a lot of cool stuff about the tornadoes and floods that threatened our clean water supply and I appreciate that they restored these buildings for this purpose. But I had some questions that were more about historical context and architectural choices and our tour guide couldn’t really answer them (that or he is a man unable to resist a tangent and lost his way until he circled back to the script).
Bottom line? The history of our water company is quite interesting and unlike that of any other American city, so even when it’s about PR what their sharing is worth knowing. (Even if you do have to go on wikipedia when you get home to research why a for-​profit, civil engineering venture housed their modern marvels of machinery within Classical and Beaux-​Arts architecture.)

If you are looking for a unique location for a meeting or event, look no further than the Louisville Water Tower. The Water Tower is a picturesque location that offers a lot of history and beauty to those that visit. Additionally, you can visit the Louisville Pure Tap Museum! Check out this location for your event, you will enjoy it.

What an awesome place! Tour was amazing and the history was so cool. What a great attraction for the family.

As someone who grew up in a town with a somewhat well known water tower — The «Florence Y’all» water tower? Along Interstate 75 in northern Kentucky? Anyone? — I have a special spot in my heart for water towers.
And that definitely includes the white water tower at Zorn Avenue and River Road.
It’s historic and beautiful — much prettier than the water towers still used today, with barbed wire and wire fencing.
This water tower dates back 150 years and is a part of Louisville Water’s original Pumping Station. From its perch, it – if it were a living, breathing being — saw Louisville grow and prosper around it, along with what I’m sure were some pretty interesting Ohio River floods.
But much more than just the water tower, the entire area around it is definitely worth a visit.
The lawn in front of it is home to so many wonderful Louisville events, like the Buy Local Fair, the Kentucky Reggae Festival and the Kentucky Bluegrass and Bourbon Festival. The lawn is spacious, and to have the water tower and pumping station as the backdrop only makes these events more special and beautiful.
Booths and tents in a field = potentially boring. Booths and tents in a field with some history behind it = instantly more memorable.
And if you actually get the chance to go into the building behind the water tower, you’ll find a lovely and chic events space and a surprisingly educational museum.
The event space has tall windows that look out at both the water tower and the river. It’s very stately and also has this iron, circular staircase that is just prime for photos. And out back is a paved terrace right on the river. I can just imagine that photos taken here, right at sundown perhaps, turn out beautifully.
And then the museum, a recent addition to the space. I got to take a quick tour of it, and it tells the story of the Louisville Water Co. — which is more interesting than you might think. There are old videos in this museum of men working to put in the water pipes, stories of floods, the history of Louisville’s need for clean drinking water and even some anecdotes about Louisville public swimming pools.
So next time when you come up River Road and see the water tower rise before you, take a turn up the drive to get a closer look at it and its building. It’s a Louisville landmark worth seeing up close.