Leaning Tower of Niles Gets Focus of Photographer's Fascination With Recreating Ruins

(Image Credit: Eric Allix Rogers)

Beth Dow, a photographer based in Minnesota, has a fascination with scale model recreations of classic ruins and architecture such as Roman aqueducts, the White House, colonnades and Niles's very own copy of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the history of the Leaning Tower of Niles, it was built in 1934 by Robert Ilg, an industrialist and owner of the Ilg Hot Air Ventilation Company, as part of a recreation park for his employees. Although Ilg drew inspiration from the original tower in Pisa, Italy, his leaning tower's original function was to provide water to the company swimming pools.

Ilg's descendants donated part of the recreational park, including the tower, to Niles in 1960 for the construction of the Leaning Tower YMCA. NIles and Pisa established a sister cities pact 20 years ago and the town invested $1.2 million to renovate the tower in 1995.