Wheatfield water tower logo: Here's your sign!

By Karen Carr Keefe

Senior Contributing Writer

When is a water tank a thing of beauty? The answer in Wheatfield is when it bears a big, beautiful and vivid version of the town’s logo.

It’s hard to miss. Driving by, you can easily see the huge logo at 3113 Niagara Falls Blvd., at the Wheatfield Water & Sewer Department. It bears the motif of a sheaf of wheat, signifying the town’s history as a farming community.

The process of installing the prominent new logo began Oct. 25 and it went up about two weeks ago, in time to avoid a clash with the weather.

Water & Sewer Department Superintendent Mark Clark described how the huge Wheatfield emblem came to be.

“The water tank logo was painted on the tank and then faded over the years.” He said they wanted something more permanent, so they brainstormed a solution. “My deputy, Matt Siegmann, and I came up with the idea of using Streamline Design to make us a new logo out of 3M vinyl to hold up to the weather after the tank was recently painted,” he said.

“Matt and I contacted Streamline Design in regard to the water tank emblem to be made by them to hang on the front of the water tank. The sign was made out of aluminum, and a vinyl decal placed on it with the Town of Wheatfield logo.”

Installing the Town of Wheatfield logo on the water tank near the Water & Sewer Department office are: Gary Ziomek of the Highway Department in the bucket; Water & Sewer Department Superintendent Mark Clark on the ladder to the left; Deputy Water Superintendent Matt Siegmann on the ladder to the right; Tim Kroening on the ground at the left; and Chris Harder holding the ladder, to the right. (Submitted photo)

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Streamline Design is located at 3475 Niagara Falls Blvd., in Wheatfield.

“It’s a great company to work with, and they also do our vehicle logos, as well,” Clark said. “My guys here at the Water Department did a great job hanging this 16-by-16-foot logo that consisted of eight 4-by-8-foot sheets.”

Proofs from the company were sized around 10-by-10 feet or 12-by-12 feet.

Clark said Council member Curt Doktor suggested, “How about we go bigger with that – 16-by-16.”

“The logo turned out pretty nice,” he said. “That’s going to last a long time.” It has a UV-protectant on it, so this one won’t fade anytime soon. He said it will be a minimum of 10 years before you see any imperfections. “So it’s well worth it.”

The Town of Wheatfield doesn’t yet have its own ZIP code, but town residents are refusing to have an identity crisis. The town insignia on the water tank is one of several high-profile signs that Wheatfield is proud of its heritage.

Another sign is the Wheatfield Wall at Nash Road and Niagara Falls Boulevard, made possible by the Wheatfield Enhancement Volunteers. That wall, completed in the fall of 2022, is part of a project that will include two future walls at the Ward Road and Witmer Road intersections with Niagara Falls Boulevard. The project goal is to ensure that thousands of residents, commuters and tourists know they are passing through the Town of Wheatfield.

 Clark was grateful to other town staffers for helping install the sign.

“I would like to thank Highway Superintendent Paul Siegmann for letting us use his bucket truck and also want to thank Gary Ziomek from the Highway Department for helping us hang the logo,” he said. Clark also thanked Town Supervisor Don MacSwan, the Town Board and the town Beautification Committee for their help in the project.

Clark got some history about the water tank from former Water & Sewer Department Superintendent Richard Donner, who retired earlier this year.

The water tank was built in 1959 and held 2 million gallons of water.

“We were going to supply the town with the water out of there. But the county did a tank, as well, so we used theirs,” Clark said. “I think it was too much in this tank to supply the town before the water went bad.” The problem was, it didn’t get used up fast enough, so it became stagnant, he said.

“Now it’s a storage facility,” Clark said. A wide garage door cut into the tank accommodates dump truck entry, and the huge area is a place to store stone, topsoil, recycle bins – things the department needs to have on hand. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that the department got rid of the pumps that were necessary when the building was a water tank.

As it was back in its early days, the tank again is topped with a Christmas tree for the holiday season. But it now also has a very big logo as an “ornament.”