Minnesota town makes Ear of Corn tower an official landmark

ROCHESTER, Minn. — The newest official landmark here is a decades-old water tower shaped like an ear of corn.

Rochester's City Council on Monday approved designating the Ear of Corn Water Tower as a historic structure.

The tower has been around for almost a century as part of the city's skyline, built as part of a cannery south of downtown. Reid, Murdoch and Co. built the 151-foot-tall tower in 1931, two years after the company opened a food canning plant near old Hwy. 14, on land that used to be part of Graham Park.

The water tower's novelty design and recognition as a local waypoint and roadside attraction — pilots in training at a flight school in the 1940s used it as a beacon — meets state historic preservation guidelines similar to the fishing bobber tower in Pequot Lakes or the Big Fish in Cass County.

The Ear of Corn tower and nearby property changed hands several times over the years until Olmsted County bought it in 2019 for $5.6 million. The tower was placed on a city list of potential historic landmarks around the same time.

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