Drinking fountains in the United States

A clear, cold, mountain spring is carried by a spout, covered with a lion's head, from a niche in a granite front, with pilasters and pediment into a marble basin.

The construction bears the date 1854 … Upon a slab above the niche are cut the words "Pro bono publico"; beneath the basin these, "Esto perpetua".

[7] The Sons of Temperance built an elaborate and popular drinking fountain for Philadelphia's 1876 Centennial Exposition, later moved close to Independence Hall, that dispensed ice water.

[8] Henry D. Cogswell, a dentist and temperance crusader who made a fortune in San Francisco real estate, sponsored (and designed) dozens of artistic fountains, some of which were adorned with a statue of himself.

Sculptors such as Karl Bitter, Alexander Stirling Calder, Gutzon Borglum and Daniel Chester French; and architects such as Paul Philippe Cret, Frederick Law Olmsted and Henry Hobson Richardson collaborated on them.

In the United States, segregation of public facilities including but not limited to water fountains due to race, color, religion, or national origin was abolished by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

An African-American man drinking at a "colored" drinking fountain in a streetcar terminal in Oklahoma City , 1939. [ 1 ]
"Upon a slab above the niche are cut the words ' Pro bono publico '; beneath the basin these, ' Esto perpetua '."