Sulphur Springs Water Tower — Tampa, Florida

The Sulphur Springs Water Tower is a 214-foot white tower beside the Hillsborough River in north Tampa, a landmark familiar to drivers on I-275. 83 Degrees Media describes its top as two tiers of battlements, as if it were the remains of a medieval castle, and the city now calls it the River Park Tower. According to WUSF, the tower has stood at 8105 N. Florida Ave. since 1927, and a City of Tampa release described it as one of two architecturally designed water towers in Florida.

The tower was never a lighthouse or an observation attraction in its working life. It was plumbing for a resort. WUSF reported in 2019 that it was built to supply water to the nearby Sulphur Springs Hotel, which stood beside a shopping arcade and an alligator farm. The ground around it has been city-owned River Tower Park since the City of Tampa bought the site in 2005.

The tower was a water supply for a resort under construction in Sulphur Springs. 83 Degrees Media reported in 2020 that it was built in 1927 by Grover Poole to serve the Sulphur Springs Hotel, whose first floor held Mave's Arcade, described as Florida's first shopping mall. The business venture behind the hotel was led by Josiah S. Richardson, the developer of Sulphur Springs, whose slogan was 'Josiah knows where the money grows.'

Richardson's resort needed more water than the springs could provide. According to a 2023 account in 83 Degrees Media, he had already built an amusement park in Sulphur Springs with a swimming pool, bath houses, an alligator farm, walking paths and a dance pavilion, and he mortgaged the property for the $180,000 it cost to build the tower. The structure sits over an artesian well and pumped water to the surrounding neighborhood. TBAYtoday adds that the water served the area's residential and commercial buildings as Sulphur Springs grew during the Florida land boom of the 1920s.

The tower was announced a year before it opened in January 1928. In addition to its water tank, it carried a searchlight on top that cast a beam a radius of five miles over north Tampa, according to 83 Degrees Media. That light, the battlements and the white finish made the Sulphur Springs tower a postcard subject; WUSF notes it appeared on dozens of postcards in the resort years.

The resort the tower was built to serve lasted only a few years. WUSF reports that in 1933 the collapse of the Tampa Electric Company dam destroyed the arcade, and that the flood, combined with the economic collapse of the 1930s and World War II, ended tourism at Sulphur Springs. 83 Degrees Media adds that Richardson defaulted on the loan and lost the property in 1934. He died in 1956.

The tower kept working long after the hotel's guests were gone. According to 83 Degrees Media, it remained in operation until 1971, when Tampa took over supplying the area with water. From 1952 to 1985 the land around its base was the site of the Tower Drive-In Theater, and the arcade building was demolished in 1976 and replaced by a parking lot. TBAYtoday reports that the Sulphur Springs Hotel and apartment complex was torn down for a greyhound track, leaving the tower as the last large structure from Richardson's resort.

Maintenance in those decades was sporadic. In 1989 the Sulphur Springs tower was pressure washed and painted with 150 gallons of graffiti-proof paint donated by Sherwin Williams, according to WUSF. A developer planning a hotel resort on the site later had the tower painted, but the project never happened, 83 Degrees Media reports. TBAYtoday notes that in 1990 Tampa Fire Rescue brought down two teenagers who had climbed the tower and become stuck on its roof.

The City of Tampa has owned the tower since 2005. WUSF reports that the city purchased the site that year and installed lights to illuminate the tower, and that the surrounding land is now known as River Tower Park. A 2019 report by WFTS Tampa Bay 28 describes the grounds as the city-owned River Tower Park and notes that the doors of the tower are kept locked.

River Tower Park sits along the Hillsborough River at 401 E. Bird St., the address used for the 2023 River Tower Festival. According to 83 Degrees Media, advocates want to extend the boardwalk that runs under Interstate 275 so that it connects River Tower Park with Sulphur Springs Park along the riverbank, and to clear invasive plants so benches can face the water. Those proposals were described in 2023 as goals of the River Tower Foundation, not as funded city projects.

The tower stands in a neighborhood the city is planning around. The City of Tampa's Sulphur Springs Neighborhood Action Plan describes Sulphur Springs as a community of approximately 10,000 residents, with a planning process that ran from a January 2025 data assessment to a final plan and implementation strategies in November 2025.

Organized preservation began with a music festival. In November 2019, Sulphur Springs residents held the first River Tower Festival in River Tower Park to raise money for the tower and park, WUSF reported, at a time when the structure had not been worked on since 1989. WUSF cited an estimate of more than $2.6 million to renovate both the tower and the park, including $100,000 just to repaint the tower.

The first festival was modest by those numbers. 83 Degrees Media reported in February 2020 that the volunteer preservation committee behind the event raised around $17,000 from the 2019 River Tower Festival, including a grant from the Hillsborough County Cultural Assets Commission. The group's first goals were to get the Sulphur Springs tower on the National Register of Historic Places and add a plaque with its history. The festival paused in 2020 and 2021 and returned in 2022.

The City of Tampa then funded the work. In November 2023, WUSF reported that the city had contracted Kimszal Contracting, Inc. to pressure wash and paint the inside and outside of the tower and replace the lights at the top, with the work expected to take six weeks. 83 Degrees Media put the contract at approximately $309,000 and described it as the first work done on the tower since 1989. Mayor Jane Castor said in the city's release that the River Park Tower had stood for nearly 100 years.

Advocates said in 2023 that paint was not the end of the job. The River Tower Foundation pointed to crumbling decorative features at the base of the Sulphur Springs tower and missing ones at the top, according to 83 Degrees Media. Public sources reviewed for this page do not confirm a National Register listing for the tower as of October 2026.