Tank houses were once a common sight on area farms. Small buildings topped with a wooden water tower; they were used to store and pressurize water before piped water became a practicality.
Intrigued by these relics of the past, Olivia P., a sophomore at American High School in Fremont began digging—figuratively. As an intern for the Fremont Cultural Arts Council, she took the opportunity to learn about local history by looking into the history of these buildings.
Through this research, she learned how closely the tank houses are tied to Fremont’s roots. Now she has a deeper connection to her own community and feels inspired to stay involved in preserving it.
Her new website, found here: sites.google.com/view/fremont-tankhouses/home resurrects a website originally created by Margaret Thornberry, president emerita of the Fremont Cultural Arts Council, who researched and documented them after moving to the area in 1996.
When she moved to Fremont, Margaret bought an old, run-down house on a quarter acre. She later found out the property once had a well, though the tank house itself was already gone.
Thornberry grew up in timber country in Oregon, so tank houses were both strange and new to her. The more of them she saw around Fremont, the more she wanted to learn about their history. At the time, she was building websites for work, so she started documenting what she found on her own site. Over time, that old website was lost, but it lived on in an archived snapshot, which is what brought it back today.
Enjoy Olivia’s new version of Margaret’s site, with thanks to them both for keeping our local history alive and accessible to the public.
