On this day in 1974 the largest fountain in America was dedicated. Although my fountain never reached this magnatude, I did have a nice fountain shooting all over the second bathroom while I was attempting to install a Grohe faucet.

Yes, I do know I am supposed to turn off the water supply first. Yes, I thought I had. No, I hadn’t. It took longer to clean up the mess than it did to install the faucet. Just my luck.

The largest fountain in America, the visual symbol of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was dedicated by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania this day. The fountain takes up one-fifth of 36-acre Point State Park at the convergence of the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio Rivers. 90 percent of the fountain is unseen. That’s the part that pumps water from an underground river (a fourth, unnamed river that runs under the city and flows south, unlike the other three rivers), stores it and feeds it into the fountain. Designed by Charles Stotz and Louis Fosner and built by Robert R. Busse, the fountain is controlled by computers and operates automatically. Wind velocity specifies the height of the water column (2 feet in diameter by up to 200 ft. high. 24 white and gold quartz-iodine lights present a dramatic display of shifting colors by night. That’s how you can see the fountain in all its glory whenever the Pittsburgh Steelers play on Monday Night Football. The most interesting structural fact and a very complicated procedure — this fountain was built to withstand water pressure from beneath, so the pressure would not push it up and cause it to float.

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