The Florence Y'all Water Tower is a

water tower A water tower is an elevated structure supporting a water tank constructed at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system, distribution system for potable water, and to provide emergency storage for fire protection. Water towe ...

owned by the city of

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, Kentucky, United States. It stands between the Florence Mall and

Interstate 75 Interstate 75 (I-75) is a major north–south Interstate Highway in the Great Lakes and Southeastern regions of the United States. As with most Interstates that end in 5, it is a major cross-country, north–south route, traveling from S ...

Interstate 71 Interstate 71 (I-71) is a north–south Interstate Highway in the midwestern and Southeastern United States, southeastern regions of the United States. Its southern terminus is at an interchange with Interstate 64, I-64 and Interstate 65, ...

, where it is seen by millions of interstate motorists annually. The tower, built in 1974 and initially painted with the words FLORENCE MALL in giant letters, became a regional landmark after the M was changed to Y' to address legal concerns. The water tower, which can hold about , stands in Boone County in

northern Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating ...

Kentucky, due south of Runway 18L/36R of

Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport is a public international airport located in Boone County, Kentucky, United States, around the community of Hebron. The airport serves the Cincinnati tri-state area. The airport's code, CVG, i ...

and between I-75/I-71 and Mall Circle Road, northeast of the mall.

History

In the early 1970s, the developers of the yet-to-be-built mall gave the land for the tower to the city, stipulating that the words "Florence Mall" be painted on it in view of interstate motorists. The tower would thus advertise the mall, which would open in September 1976. The tower was built by the Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Co. of

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

, Pennsylvania, and painted in 1974 by the Virginia Erection Co. The giant advertisement immediately raised legal concerns. In July 1974, state Bureau of Highways officials told the city that the tower's sign was illegal because it advertised something which did not yet exist. Among the discussed possibilities were repainting the tower or covering the words with a large

tarpaulin A tarpaulin ( , ) or tarp is a large sheet of strong, flexible, water-resistant or waterproof material, often cloth such as canvas or polyester coated with polyurethane, or made of plastics such as polyethylene. Tarpaulins often have reinf ...

. With time running out to comply with the law, civil staff met for a

brainstorming Brainstorming is a creativity technique in which a group of people interact to divergent thinking, suggest ideas spontaneously in response to a prompt. Stress is typically placed on the volume and variety of ideas, including ideas that may seem o ...

session at the Stringtown Restaurant with C.M. "Hop" Ewing, then mayor of Florence, who "sketched different ideas on a napkin". Ewing ultimately devised the idea of removing the vertical lines at the sides of the M in MALL, adding a stem to make it a Y and adding an

apostrophe The apostrophe (, ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one o ...

; resulting in "

Y'all ''Y'all'' (pronounced ) is a contraction of '' you'' and ''all'', sometimes combined as ''you-all''. ''Y'all'' is the main second-person plural pronoun in Southern American English, with which it is most frequently associated, though it also ...

". Ewing called it a "corny solution, but cost-effective", because the minor alteration would cost one-third of a full repainting. The city paid $472 to the W.T. Marx Company of

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

, to make the changes. The publicity surrounding the Florence Y'all tower advertised the mall better than a passive sign alone. On the mall's opening day in late 1976, mall-goers created a

traffic jam Traffic congestion is a condition in transport that is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. Traffic congestion on urban road networks has increased substantially since the 1950s, resulting in m ...

at the

Kentucky Route 18 Kentucky Route 18 (KY 18), also known as Burlington Pike, is a state highway that serves as a major road through Florence and Burlington in the U.S. state of Kentucky. The western terminus of the route is at KY 338 in Rabbit Hash. The eastern ...

exit from I-75.

Further developments

As a general rule, water towers are cleaned about every five years and repainted about every ten. The repaintings of the Florence tower have hidden the original patchwork modification. At some point, the red and white stripes on the tower were extended onto the top, where they converge in a spoke pattern easily visible from aircraft. The tower's rewritten words have become a local motto of sorts. A town festival held around Labor Day was renamed the "Florence Y'all" fest. The words can be found on lapel pins, bumper stickers, mousepads, postcards, and T-shirts. A local miniature golf course, Florence's World of Golf, features a Florence Y'all replica. The "Soft Play" area in Florence Mall has its own replica tower. The local independent-league baseball team renamed itself the

Florence Y'alls The Florence Y'alls are a professional baseball team based in Florence, Kentucky. The Y'alls compete in the Frontier League (FL) as a member of the Midwest Division. The franchise is one of the oldest current running teams of the league. Founded ...

in January 2020, but it had celebrated the tower even during its 16 seasons as the Florence Freedom. The team's mascot is a large inflatable "Y'all Star" mascot; the team has given away Florence Y'all water tower

bobblehead A bobblehead, also known by nicknames such as nodder, wobbler, or wacky wobbler, is a type of small collectible figurine. Its head is often oversized compared to its body. Instead of a solid connection, its head is connected to the body by a ...

dolls. When the Freedom hosted the

Frontier League The Frontier League (FL; French: ''Ligue Frontière'', LF) is a professional baseball league in North America composed of 18 teams – 15 in the United States and 3 in Canada. The FL is one of the eight independent baseball leagues in North Ame ...

's annual all-star game in 2016, they marketed it as the "Y'All-Star Game", with the water tower in the official logo.

In media

Literature

The Florence Y'all Tower is mentioned by the narrator of the novel

Ducks, Newburyport ''Ducks, Newburyport'' is a 2019 novel by British author Lucy Ellmann. The novel is written in the stream of consciousness narrative style, and mostly consists of a single long sentence that lists the main character's thoughts over the course of ...

References

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External links

Google Street View of Florence Y'all Water Tower
Culture of Appalachia Buildings and structures in Boone County, Kentucky Individual signs in the United States Water towers in Kentucky Towers completed in 1974 1974 establishments in Kentucky Florence, Kentucky