(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Here's a little something "About San Diego" with Ken Kramer.

- [Narrator] Behold, something that is, to a lot of folks, rather well liked in North Park.

I mean it, a landmark built way back in 19... - It was erected '23, completed '24.

- [Narrator] That's right.

A water tower.

And if you think, no, it can't be such a favorite thing.

Well, it is.

Look, in community parades, a water tower costume, residents dressed up like the water tower symbolic of North Park.

Yes, even tattoos.

- Some person actually has their back is of the water tower.

- [Narrator] Okay, how can this be?

Historian Alex Bevil is going to help us here.

First thing is to know it was special.

From the time it was built, it was... - The largest tallest ellipsoidal bottom elevated steel plate water tank in the world.

- [Narrator] See, there's that rounded bottom of the tank.

Technically located within what was then considered University Heights, it held up 1.2 million gallons of water back when a lot of places depended on it.

(upbeat music) - Literally from East San Diego, greater Mid-City area, University Heights, Hillcrest, Mission Hills, uptown, downtown.

- [Narrator] Alex was asked to write the proposal that this tower and the seven acre area around it be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Included is a baseball field.

- That's where a young Ted Williams learn how to hit his home runs.

- [Narrator] Where there's this park today was once part of the water infrastructure built around that tower.

- That held 17 million gallons of water.

Imagine that.

- [Narrator] That water was pumped as needed up into the tower.

And because the water was high up there, gravity created enough water pressure for the thousands of faucets in homes below.

- But today, this tank is empty and has been since the 1990s, it became obsolete, and there were questions about earthquake safety.

More than a million gallons of water sloshing back and forth, you can imagine.

- [Narrator] Okay, it wasn't being used anymore, so well, then you'd tear it down, right?

Oh, no, and why not?

- Because the locals would've been up in arms and they were saying, "No, we don't, no, we don't want that."

- [Narrator] And over a century, this tower had become a celebrated symbol of the community.

It's used to give directions to visitors.

Look for the tower.

It can be seen from miles around, and by planes coming into the airport.

It's like a welcome home, and it's, you know, unique.

- They did a survey, an informal survey, asking people, what does that mean?

(metal clanging) What does the tower mean to you?

(metal clanging) And then one person said, "Basically, it gives me sort of a steampunk vibe and reminds me of the Tin Man."

- A man made out of tin!

- From "The Wizard of Oz."

- [Narrator] Alex Bevil refers to the tower that way now as Tin Man.

- And then you got its cousin, the North Park Mini Me Tin Man.

- [Narrator] Just off the 805 at El Cajon Boulevard, that one's not for water at all.

It just hides a cell tower and antennas.

But it's keeping with the historic theme.

In 2013, this big tank and the area around it were indeed added to the National Register.

Then two years later, the University Heights elevated water tank, commonly known as the North Park Water Tower, was designated a local civil engineering landmark.

To Alex, the more he studied its history, the more he got to know about this now empty tower on Howard Street in North Park, the more he came to feel like a lot of people in North Park do.

- It's a local landmark and it represents something.

- [Narrator] Something highly visible and historic, and a little bit fun (metal clanging) (whistle tooting) about San Diego.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - A couple of facts here.

Tourists spend about $15 billion a year every year in San Diego, and one out of every eight of us think of that is in some way connected to that industry.

Now, the people who show us around San Diego, we call them tour guides, of course, but have you ever wondered who was the very first one to do that, to advertise as a tour guide?

Watch this.

- [Narrator] Go back well over a century ago, if you had the time and financial means to travel, I tell you, there was one place you wanted to go, ♪ California ♪ ♪ Here I come ♪ ♪ Right back where I started from ♪ - [Narrator] go way back into the 1890s and 1900, the wandering soul would be off to see sights, which might possibly include San Diego, population, 17,000.

(upbeat music) Well, what would you see when you got here?

A fairly vibrant downtown for the times, over on Coronado, the hotel, of course, and to the south of it, a city of tents you could rent for a week or two.

The Theosophical Center with its ornate buildings and Greek Theater on Point Loma.

And not far from that, the lighthouse, okay.

- But supposing you wanted to be more adventurous, see some different spots, and have more of an understanding of the places you were seeing.

You might really like to have a tour guide.

- [Narrator] And back then there was one who not only knew his way around San Diego, but among tourists and locals became something of a legend.

And his name was Reuben.

- Reuben Williams - [Narrator] Reuben The Guide, they called him.

A tour guide.

Nobody had done that before.

- Yes, as a matter of fact, not only was he San Diego's first tour guide, he was also an international tour guide, because he would take his tourist from San Diego downtown across the border to Tijuana, and he would tour them around there.

- Yvette Porter Moore is a genealogist and public historian who has studied the remarkable life and work of Reuben Williams.

- Oh, there he is.

- There he is.

Yeah.

- He just seemed very interesting.

So through the years I just started researching him.

- [Narrator] What she discovered was fascinating.

Here was a man who spoke two languages, he was a writer, storyteller, and his clients, the people he showed around, loved him.

- He was just an individual that always had a smile on his face.

And I don't know how he had a smile on his face since he suffered from rheumatism.

- [Narrator] And Yvette says, in turn of that century San Diego, he also had to deal with racism.

- And Reuben was able to rise above all that with his personality and with his humor.

- [Narrator] He'd meet tourists at the San Diego and Otay Railroad Depot, right by where Petco Park is today.

And from there, the journey began, past the international boundary marker, you could go back home and tell people you'd been there and seen that with your own eyes, but mostly to what was back then, the very small town of Tijuana.

And along the way, he'd be so personable with his storytelling and winning friends, who in turn would tell their friends.

And that was how he built his unique business.

He was the first.

- And he's a trailblazer.

Wow!

Just making everybody's vacation, you know, memorable.

- [Narrator] When Reuben died on January the 11th, 1903, there was a real sense of loss.

Many people turned out for his flower-decorated funeral downtown.

He was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, but it wasn't clear where, and to this day, the grave is unmarked.

Yvette began looking for information.

- I was able to get that, got the information, and I found him where his resting spot is.

But he doesn't have a headstone, which is unfortunate.

- [Narrator] That's right.

In a city where tourism is so central to our economy, where guiding international visitors has become an industry, there's nothing to memorialize the one who led the way.

- I think there needs to be a landmark or something saying Reuben was here and Reuben made a difference, you know.

- [Narrator] It was a long time ago.

But we are a city that cares about its history and should honor Reuben Williams for what he did and who he was.

Such a lasting tribute would say a lot about him and about San Diego.

(gentle music)