77The Fountain for Horses

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.