The Colonel Ward Pumping Station was brought online in 1915 to provide water to the city of Buffalo, pumped from Lake Erie along a 6,600 foot tunnel from an intake building out in Lake Erie. The pumping station houses five immense steam pumps, each weighing 1,100 tons, standing 60 feet tall, with two 20-foot diameter 30-ton flywheels, and producing 1,200 horsepower, capable of discharging 30 million gallons of water per day through 48-inch diameter pipes.

These steam pumps were supplanted by higher capacity electric pumps in 1938, but the steam pumps were retained in full working order through to 1975 as a back-up system. This is truly an awe-inspiring piece of engineering and, as an added bonus, I was able to visit the intake building on the Buffalo fireboat, Edward M Cotter (built in 1900!), which demonstrated it's firefighting capabilities on the way back into Buffalo's harbor!