PAXTON, Ill. (WCIA) — The skyline in one Central Illinois city got an upgrade on Wednesday.

A years long project to create a replica of Paxton’s 138-year-old water tower is finally done — and people got emotional. Lots of people came out on Wednesday to see a replica of the old water tank raised onto the 80-foot-tower downtown.

The building process has taken a couple of years, but the idea began half a century ago.

“It’s the crown of the town,” Stan Foster, owner of Stan’s Stair Shop, said.

Weighing in at a whopping 22,000 pounds, the “Crown of the Town” is on display for all to see. The Paxton Foundation, a local historic group that was founded in the 1980s, had a goal to put a water tank back on the tower downtown just like the one that was there from 1887 to 1948.

The foundation’s president, Roice Baier, said that the project really got traction two years ago.

“So then, Stan Foster comes into the picture,” Baier said.

Foster was visiting Paxton’s history museum.

“I was noticing this model, this brick water tower, and it had a nice water tank like the original. And I thought wow…” Foster said. “That would be cool to have this water tank on it,” Foster said.

That’s when Baier got a call.

“And said… ‘Stan wants to build a tank for the tower’,” Baier recalls. “I said ‘Is he done yet?'”

So, Foster got to work.

“I started drawing the tower, got on the national registry of historical buildings, and I found the blueprints for the building. I took GPS measurements. I designed the tank, drew it, but just had to design it to see if this thing was even feasible,” Foster said.

It took a village to build.

“The copper around the bottom had to be soldered and welded, so that’s where I came in. That’s kind of my expertise,” a metalworker for the project, Steve Pierro, said.

Creating the crown is an achievement they’ll never forget.

“I’m truly honored to be a part of it. I’m a Paxton native and just to be involved in something like this is truly amazing,” Pierro said.

Foster was equally grateful.

“It means a lot. I’m a little emotional about it, but i had no problems at all. I wasn’t worried about it fitting. I just wanted to see it up there. It’s so cool,” Foster said.

The next steps include hooking the electrical up; there will be LED lights shining on the crown. Baier hopes people as far away as Champaign will be able to see it at night.