Poplar Bluff icon gets new recognition

The Poplar Bluff water tower at Business Highway 60 and 67 served as a landmark for members of the community until it came down in 2012. However, it is now immortalized on the walls of the Poplar Bluff History Museum.

Michael Shane designed, painted and helped hang a 8-by-9-foot painting now displayed at the museum.

He said the museum already had a display of the tower that included historical photos, but asked him to do a mural for the space. Shane said he had “horrible experiences” painting murals, but offered to do a painting instead.

It took four people most of a day to successfully hang the 8-by-9 foot painting.Photo provided

“I thought it was going to be a normal sized painting,” he laughed. “I had no idea they were talking about a nine foot painting.”

Shane said the piece took about a month and around 10 tries to get it right.

The final piece is painted on six canvases, hung together to create one image. He said he kept redoing it as he attempted to get the proportions and scale right on canvases. The project proved to be a challenge, Shane said, mostly due to the size.

This photo of the water tower while it was painted white is part of the museum exhibit about the tower itself. Photo provided

“You put something on it and then you step back and go ‘oh, no that’s not right,’” Shane said. “You’re always too close.”

Originally, the water tower was silver, but it was later painted white. Shane said the museum asked for the old silver version, of which they only had two pictures. He said there are many pictures of the white tower, but the silver tower is harder to find.

He used the two pictures the museum had and did his own research for some of the details of the piece.

It took Michael Shane a month and 10 tries to paint this 8-by-9 foot tribute to the water tower at the Poplar Bluff History Museum. Photo provided

The piece also includes the older U.S. 67 and Missouri 53 street signs in front of the tower, and trees around it.

“They basically, like most paintings you do for people, they dictate exactly what they want,” Shane said. “Which actually makes it easier because you give them what they want.”

The water tower stood as a staple of the community, Shane said.

It was built in the 1929 and used until 2011. The tower held 500,000 gallons of water. It was 51 feet in diameter, 37 feet deep and stood 105 feet high.

“That’s how you found everything,” he said. “‘You go to the water tower and hang a left,’ ‘you go to the water tower and it’s another block.’ That was the landmark. Most small towns just had that center piece ... When they took it down it was quite the emotional event in this town.”

Under previous city ordinance, the water tower was used as the landmark to determine where city employees could live to be considered close enough for town.

Included in the exhibit on the tower includes a PVC pipe reconstruction, several pieces of the original tower and several pictures.

It is in the left-hand stair well going up to the second floor of the museum. The painting is hung to be visible from the second floor.

Shane said he’s surprised with how it turned out.

“When it’s hung, it looks even larger,” he said. “It was just as much work to hang that as it was to paint it.”

Shane said hanging the painting was a day-long process with four people working on it.

“We’re all on in the years, so it was pretty dangerous,” he laughed, “climbing up on the ladders and everything.”

Over the years, Shane said, he thinks the painting will get “a lot of comments” from people who remember the original.

“That’s what those little county museums are for, to remember those things,” he said.

The museum is open from 2-4 p.m. every Sunday.