The last steam-powered pumping station in America is in Shreveport

SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – There’s a place where you can step inside the Industrial Revolution of America. When pressure was turned into power.

Working conditions were difficult, and it’s hard to imagine until you visit this unique facility, the last of its kind in the country. Destination Louisiane takes you back in time to the Steam Age.

Huddled on the outskirts of downtown, you will find the last steam-powered pumping station in America. Now, it is the Shreveport Water Works Museum. Machinery still intakes water, left as it was, as if it never closed, giving visitors a look into America’s industrial past when steam powered the nation.

“This building would have been very loud, very warm, and very active 24 hours a day,” said administrator Kevin Haines.

Boiler systems would have been brimming as intense hot air filled the story-high structure.

“This was a very hot place, very loud, and very dangerous environment. Not to mention they were wearing blue jeans and long flannel shirts because you touch anything with heat behind it, you were going to burn yourself. I was told stumpy was a common nickname. But as long as you did your work, you got a paycheck. Some of those times, it was hard to get a paycheck. It was a hard job. You had to be a tough person to work in a place like this,” Haines said.

A tough but vital job of providing clean drinking water in the early days of the city’s development. Opened in 1887 as a private company by the famous Youree family of Shreveport
it pumped water from nearby Cross Bayou and the Red River.

“The first operation years, it was built for fire hydrants, which were pretty important for the city at that time. Anytime there was a fire they would have pressurized water ready to go. But clean drinking water was the purpose of this place for many, many years. From that late 1800s’, to 1930, Shreveport had some of the best drinking in the whole entire county with the advancements on this property and keeping it going for a long time,” Haines said.

For a very long time indeed, well past the time when the world transitioned away from steam to electric power. This local relic continued pumping clean water to parts of the city until 1992.

“It was built to run for a long time, and it did. It ran for a very long time,” Haines said.

The city purchased the property in 1917, when the famous Amiss came in. Tom Amiss became the city’s first superintendent of the newly formed water department. He made sure the facility stayed in peak condition.

“I believe that is why it is still here to this day because he liked working on the old equipment and fixing up all the old stuff,” Haines said.

Amiss’ grit and love for the building are credited for its continued legacy. It’s truly like a few others still standing in the country because its metal was spared during World War II when most industrial sites were scraped for the war effort. It was designated a national historic landmark in 1983 when it was officially closed.

“To see it still standing like this. To walk in and still smell the grease, see the age on everything, you just don’t get to see this anywhere,” Haines said.

Haines has met a few former workers he calls true tough guys.

“A few gentlemen who used to work here before they shut it down. They remember everything still on the property. Which is pretty amazing,” Haines said.

Now hosting field trips and even engineering students who come to study the marvel, it became a museum in 2006. You can join Haines for a free tour with interactive displays of how the early filtration system, which was also one of the first to use chlorine, worked. Plus, hear the sounds of the industrial world.

“Blow the whistle. That’s everyone’s favorite part,” Haines said.

The Shreveport Water Works museum is open to the public Tuesday through Sunday. Donations are welcome.

Haines also said it’s where a lot of people dressed in steampunk costumes come to take their pictures.

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