These small, tower-shaped buildings were attached to a windmill, which pumped water into the wooden or sheet metal tank at the top, where it gravity-fed the nearby house. In some tankhouses, the tank was exposed, while in others, the tank was enclosed within the structure itself. A counterweight was used to measure how much water was inside the tank at any given time.

Underneath the tank was the house--a small room (or rooms), actually--that had many uses. Sometimes the house served as a "cold storage" facility to cool canned goods, eggs, and dairy products. Some tankhouses were used as workrooms; some held washing machines. Often they were used to store firewood, tools, or other household items.

Due to the weight of water, for every foot of rise, pressure raises approximately one-half PSI (pound per square inch). A tank at least ten feet taller than the kitchen sink would produce about five pounds per square inch of water pressure. Back when dishwashers stood on two legs and there was nothing automatic about doing laundry, that was probably considered not only adequate but also hugely preferable to the alternative of pouring water by hand from a bucket. Today's modern codes, however, require a minimum of 15 PSI. When electric well pump systems replaced windmills, tankhouses became obsolete. Maintenance and sanitation problems, not to mention a falling water table, further sealed their fate. On farms and ranches in many rural communities, these hard-working little structures fell into disrepair and many of them were eventually destroyed.

The Texas Hill Country town of Mason seems to have bucked the trend of demolishing old tankhouses. In Mason, there are tankhouses everywhere: big ones, small ones, some with windows, some without, some freestanding, others incorporated into the structure of the main building, tankhouses made of rock, wood, concrete, cinder blocks, and stucco--there's even a tankhouse shaped like a castle that featured the first ind ...

Read the entirety of this article in the print edition.

Subscribe online — it's quick and easy