The brightly painted red and white squares of this four-story water tower have been a distinct landmark since its placement on the prairie in 1942. The 50,000-gallon storage tank, built circa 1908, originally served the community of Broadview north of Billings. The southwest leg of the tower identifies Indiana Steel—a prominent Chicago-based firm that produced bridges, railroad track, and structural steel for skyscrapers—as its manufacturer. A shortage of steel during World War II forced the US Army Corps of Engineers to acquire the Broadview water tower, no longer in use by 1942, for the Lewistown Air Base. The William P. Roscoe Company of Billings, whose specialty was bridge construction, won the contract to build the water system for the base. Roscoe acquired the Broadview tower, disassembled it, transported it to Lewistown, and reassembled it on the airfield. The air bases at Glasgow and Cut Bank also acquired similar water tanks while a much larger concrete cylindrical water tower served the base at Great Falls. Of the four towers, only this example at Lewistown survives.
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