What the heck is that doing here?!?!

So say you're driving down Cermak Rd just west of  Chicago around Cicero Avenue.   You'd see something you can see basically all over America - a big strip mall with a Taco Bell, a dollar store and lots of similar businesses.  

BUT wait a sec - what the heck is a medieval tower doing behind it?!?!

Let me explain.    You are looking at the tower that once belonged to the enormous Western Electric Hawthorne Works.   (Guess what the name of the strip mall is today by the way?   Hawthorne Works Shopping Center.)    Anyway, around the late 1920's and early 1930's, this plant was where most of the country's telephone equipment was made.  The plant covered 200 acres and employed thousands.

Western Electric Hawthorne Works

And here we see that the tower was the plant's water tower.