The 1871 Wisconsin legislature authorized the city of Milwaukee to finance and build a public water system. By 1873 the Board of Water Commissioners had constructed the old North Point Pumping Station below the bluff with intake from Lake Michigan, this tower, a reservoir a mile west, and 55 miles of water mains, delivering cheap, plentiful, pure water to Milwaukee's people and industry.

This 175-foot Victorian Gothic tower, designed by Charles A. Gombert and made of cut Niagara limestone from Wauwatosa, houses a circular wrought-iron standpipe 120 feet high and four feet in diameter. Until construction of a new pumping station in 1963, the standpipe water absorbed pulsations of reciprocating steam-driven engines, and the tower prevented ice from forming in the standpipe during cold weather.

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