{"nrhp_refnum":"90000465","name":"Brenham Water Works","other_names":["#167"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1105 S. Austin","address_restricted":false,"city":"Brenham","county":"Washington County","state":"TX","lat":30.15899304900006,"lon":-96.39766787499997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1990-03-29","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story, painted brick waterworks building at 1105 South Austin Street in Brenham, Washington County, Texas, built around 1884-85 for the Brenham Water Company and designed in the Victorian Italianate style.","why_significant":"It is an excellent example of Italianate design applied to a public building and one of only two such properties left in Brenham. It also reflects the role of centralized water supply in the city's growth in the late 19th century.","narrative":"Brenham Water Works is a two-story, five-bay painted brick building on South Austin Street, completed around 1884-85. It was built under an August 1884 contract between the Brenham City Council and W.C. Conner for the Brenham Water Company, which received a 25-year right to supply water for general use and fire fighting. The plant and well reservoir cost $80,000. The city bought the plant in 1894 for $40,000 and added a purification plant and reservoir in 1924. The building shows Italianate features: segmental arched windows and round arched doorways with molded brick hoods, corner quoins, a corbeled cornice, and a flat portico on wooden columns. It remains largely unaltered and is still run by the city. Its importance rests on its architecture, as one of only two surviving Italianate public buildings in Brenham, and on its part in the city's growth through centralized water service and later municipal management.","period_of_significance":"1884-1941","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Victorian/Italianate","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Described as in good condition and largely unaltered; still operated by the City of Brenham as a water facility.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:20.997787-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/73/9706/40970673/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_TX/90000465.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90000465/d89230e5d2-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90000465/d89230e5d2-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Renelibrary","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brenham_Water_Works_in_Brenham,_Texas.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Renelibrary</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brenham_Water_Works_in_Brenham,_Texas.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40970673","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q110000826"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/texas/washington-county/brenham-water-works-90000465/"}