14The Fountain for Horses
National Humane Alliance horse fountain, cut to the Alliance’s standard pattern by the Bodwell Granite Company of Vinalhaven, Maine, presented to Waco in 1909 · granite with bronze lion-head spouts · given by the Alliance out of the bequest of its founder Hermon Lee Ensign, whose name is cast on the bronze plaque · no individual carver was ever recorded · beside Heritage Square · know a carver’s name, or more of this fountain’s Waco story? Tell us.FOUNTAIN
A 1909 granite drinking fountain built for horses — with the lower basins for the dogs.
This granite fountain was never meant for people. In the early 1900s the National Humane Alliance — founded on the fortune of Hermon Lee Ensign, whose name is on the plaque — shipped fountains like this one to cities all over America with a simple, radical idea attached: the animals doing the city's hauling deserved a drink. The big bowl sits exactly at the height of a horse's muzzle. The little basins tucked into the base are for the dogs and cats.
In 1909, Waco ran on hooves — drays, buggies, delivery wagons, all of it — and a public drink of cold water was infrastructure, the way a fuel station is now. The horses are long gone. The fountain never left. It has stood through the city's entire motorized century, patient as granite, still holding water for a thirsty traveler who is now more than a hundred years late.
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