# What's the story behind red and white checkerboard military water towers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 29, 2013, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-behind-red-and-white-checkerboard-military-water-towers/664782 "2013-07-29T03:39:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-behind-red-and-white-checkerboard-military-water-towers/664782/1 "2013-07-29T03:39:54Z")
As an Air Force brat, I always knew we were near our new base when I saw the ubiquitous Ralston-Purina inspired watertower. Now granted, I don’t live terribly near any major military installations at the moment, but my last visits to San Antonio and Eglin AFB in Florida have revealed that military watertowers are a decidedly unsexy beige. One of Eglin’s has a cool Air Force logo on it, though. I’m pretty sure this was unique to CONUS installations. When we were stationed in Britain, the watertowers were olive green. Does anyone know why military installations had the checkerboard design? Was it as simple as visibility for aircraft? And why red and white? And why are they gone now? I did see one about a year ago on I-35 on the way to Dallas. It was small and looked as if it might be disused. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-behind-red-and-white-checkerboard-military-water-towers/664782/2 "2013-07-29T03:44:04Z")
And after I started this thread I saw this… I might have answered my own question. > **[Checkerboard water towers! (Air Force, military, FAA) - Aviation -Airplanes,...](http://www.city-data.com/forum/aviation/1636301-checkerboard-water-towers.html)** > > I associate checkerboard water towers with military bases. Someone should start a list of them. There is one in Greenville, MS at the Mid-Delta ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-behind-red-and-white-checkerboard-military-water-towers/664782/3 "2013-07-29T03:46:25Z")
I think it must have been a standard for all the new Army Air Force bases set up during World War II, that kept being repainted for decades. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-behind-red-and-white-checkerboard-military-water-towers/664782/4 "2013-07-29T03:53:24Z")
The (civilian) water tower in my town was really close to the airport and it had the orange/red and white checkerboard pattern (it was more like pink, but I think it had faded a lot by the time they tore it down). A factory smokestack had the same colors in bands. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Greenjeans](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.greenjeans/32/551_2.png) [@Mr.Greenjeans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Greenjeans)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-behind-red-and-white-checkerboard-military-water-towers/664782/5 "2013-07-29T12:13:08Z")
Behind the street where I grew up in Northeast Philly (within maybe 5 miles of NE Philly Airport), we had a pair of red and white checkerboard watertowers. Found a pic of one of them here: [http://www.farmtocity.org/images/CSA/ST\_Sunflowers.jpg](http://www.farmtocity.org/images/CSA/ST_Sunflowers.jpg) I believe that they are now a less obtrusive light blue. ---
**Author:** ![Dereknocue67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6de8d8/32.png) [@Dereknocue67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dereknocue67)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2013, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-behind-red-and-white-checkerboard-military-water-towers/664782/6 "2013-07-29T12:22:39Z")
As a former air traffic controller I remember that any structure within 2 1/2 degrees on either side of the runway center line must be painted with the checkerboard pattern. There were also height and distance designations from the runway but I cannot recall the numbers. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-behind-red-and-white-checkerboard-military-water-towers/664782/7 "2013-07-30T00:30:39Z")
Air Force bases hve planes flying around, often with new pilots, so the increased visibility of the checkerboard pattern ia useful. Also, they hqd qan abundant supply of nearly free ‘grunt’ labor ot paint them in that pattern. Municipal ones are painted a simpler, cheaper solid color (unless done for PR reasons – than many city ones are very imaginative.) ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-behind-red-and-white-checkerboard-military-water-towers/664782/8 "2013-07-30T19:50:08Z")
They still exist on US bases in South Korea. ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-behind-red-and-white-checkerboard-military-water-towers/664782/9 "2013-07-30T20:04:15Z")
There is a factory in Sunnyvale, CA that has a checkboard water tower. The factory has done defense work for a long time, but it isn’t a military facility. I used to live within sight of it, though the current Street View image from 2011 suggests the tower hasn’t been given a fresh coat of paint in a long while. I presume it is painted that way because it is near the flight path for Moffett Field, the old Naval Air Station which is now a “Federal Airfield” these days.