The McNeill Street Pumping Station, located
near downtown Shreveport on the banks of Cross Bayou, is Shreveport’s
original waterworks. The first water
plant facilities, including steam-driven pumps, were installed on
the site in 1887 as part of the construction of Shreveport’s first
municipal water system, which was only the second such municipal
system in the entire state.
Portions of that original installation,
along with major additions from the 1899-1921 time frame, continued
to operate until 1994, although the steam pumps were finally retired
in 1980.
The McNeill plant is typical of waterworks
from the turn of the last century that were once common throughout
the United States, but which have long since disappeared from the
landscape. Through a combination of circumstances, McNeill not only
survived intact beyond its era, but actually remained in operation
using antique steam-powered machinery dating from the late 1800’s
and early 1900’s. These exceedingly rare examples of bygone
technology can not only be found at McNeill, but are still intact in
their original historic location and are in an operable
configuration thanks to meticulous maintenance by water department
personnel before final retirement in 1980. Robert Vogel, former
Curator of Heavy Machinery and Civil Engineering at the Smithsonian
Institution National Museum of History and Technology, visited
McNeill in 1980 and commented at that time that two of the
Worthington pumps there may be the sole survivors of their types.
McNeill is historically noteworthy in other
areas of early water treatment technology, as well. Water filtration
was begun at McNeill in 1890 when fewer than 10% of the nation’s
water plants were providing filtered water. McNeill adopted
reinforced concrete construction for filter tanks only two years
after this innovation was first applied at a New Jersey plant.
McNeill was even quicker to implement chlorine to disinfect water
when Shreveport bought one of the country’s first chlorinating
machines in 1914, only one year after the first use of liquid
chlorine in 1913.
The historic significance of McNeill has
been recognized by a number of national organizations. It is on the
register of National Historic Sites and is also a National Historic
Landmark, the only one in Shreveport or Northwest Louisiana. The
American Waterworks Association has designated it an Historic
American Water Landmark. In 1999, the American Society of Civil
Engineers designated McNeill a National Historic Civil Engineering
Landmark. The only other facilities accorded this distinction in
1999 were the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.
