Drinking fountain

Modern indoor drinking fountains may incorporate filters to remove impurities from the water and chillers to lower its temperature.

Drinking fountains are usually found in public places, like schools, rest areas, libraries, and grocery stores.

[3][4][5] Many jurisdictions require drinking fountains to be wheelchair accessible (by sticking out horizontally from the wall), and to include an additional unit of a lower height for children and short adults.

Designed by Charles-Auguste Lebourg with four caryatids atop a green cylindrical base, these fountains have become iconic symbols of Paris.

The National Woman's Christian Temperance Union (NWCTU)'s organizing convention of 1874 encouraged its attendees to erect the fountains in their hometowns, as a means to discourage people from drinking in saloons.

[15] The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, founded in 1866, expressed concern about the difficulty of finding fresh water for work horses in urban areas.

Combined drinking fountains with a bubbler for people, a water trough for horses and sometimes a lower basin for dogs, became popular.

[16] 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.

In one study, a virus commonly known to cause diarrhea in young children, known as the rotavirus, has been found on drinking fountains in child day care facilities.

[22] A survey of US dialects undertaken between 2002 and 2004 found the word bubbler is commonly used in southern and eastern Wisconsin and in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

[25] Frost-resistant drinking fountains are used outdoors in cold climates and keep the control mechanisms below the frostline resulting in a delay for when water comes out.

Many private individuals in Armenia install pulpulaks (Armenian name for drinking fountain) in their yards or neighborhoods for various reasons, which include honoring dead relatives/friends or giving back to the community.

In Nepal, the construction of water conduits like dhunge dharas, dug wells and tutedharas is considered a pious act.

A typical drinking fountain
In 2008, people are still using this drinking fountain built in 570 AD called Manga Hiti in Patan, Nepal
The typical drinking fountain in Rome, called nasone
Photograph of a granite drinking fountain inscribed, "Replace the cup"
First fountain installed in London by the Metropolitan Free Drinking Fountain Association
People drinking from a Wallace fountain during Bastille Day celebrations in 1911
Combined drinking fountain for people, horses and dogs, Toronto, Canada, 1899
An African-American man drinking at a "colored" drinking fountain in a streetcar terminal in Oklahoma City , 1939. [ 13 ]
Man drinking from a pulpulak in Armenia. An example of the so called 'vertical' design
A drinking fountain with a guard to prevent contact between spigot and user's mouth.
An outdoor fountain at the Barbara Chapel above the Bielerhöhe mountain pass , Vorarlberg , Austria.