The Pentagon's purple water fountain

[snopes]

Comment: I would like to add an interesting anecdote to your article on
segregated bathrooms formerly in the Pentagon. I served in the Pentagon
from August 1999 to June 200, and a two-star general I work with told me
"the rest of the story" reference the lore of the Pentagon's singular
remaining purple water fountain in the basement. What is striking is the
"official" vs. the real story.

Because of the labyrinthine nature of the Pentagon alone, not to mention
the common bland uniform nature of how the majority of hallways and
stairwells were painted, it is easy to get turned around down the wrong
corridor when trying to find a particular office. However, EVERYONE knew
that to find one of the USAF's basement command centers, you looked for a
key landmark, the one and only purple water fountain! Then, you knew you
were at the USAF command center.

This fountain subsequently has quite a lore behind it:
- One story is during the 24/7 rush to complete the Pentagon during WWII
in short order, the supplier had run out of the typical generic white
porcelain water fountain so many of us fondly remember from our elementary
school days (and remember, this is a government construction project,
therefore, the "built by the lowest bidder" joke is real), and allegedly
had a purple water fountain available in stock to complete his
construction supply requirement, thus it was installed.

- Another favorite story is that through numerous administration and
leadership changes over the decades, the purple fountain was periodically
threatened to be removed by the Civil Engineers for a modern water
fountain. Subsequently, it would "mysteriously disappear" (wink, wink,
nudge, nudge) with the unspoken but assumed inside joke being that
wonderfully "sly, cunning and devious" NCOs would dutifully "borrow" the
sole purple water fountain during an o-dark-thirty rescue mission and hide
it for an indeterminate period from the ignoble fate of the landfill.
Months would supposedly pass, leadership personnel change as happens all
the time in the Pentagon, attention wanes . and voila . the fountain just
magically reappeared overnight sometime! Of course, though, the proffered
explanation was slyly ". why no, it's always been there...." (anyone who'
s ever served with NCOs knows this replete situation all too well).

Nowadays, the singular purple water fountain is deeply entrenched in
Pentagon history and is safe from those dastardly Civil Engineers by being
enshrined inside a display case near its original location. However, this
where yet another funny situation occurs as the "official" posted
description of its history inside the display case is really quite
different from its true background.

While the politically-correct non-offensive version posted makes it sound
like this purple fountain's existence was just a fluke of time and
attrition, the real non-posted story is, sadly, segregation. As with the
segregated bathrooms initially installed in the 1940s era Pentagon, so too
were segregated drinking fountains, thus the purple fountain. Unlike
popular lore, however, there wasn't just one but many installed throughout
the Pentagon, and typically in corridors out-of-sight from the vast
majority of primary use hallways traversed by Caucasians.

However, after the military was desegregated, the Pentagon's maintenance
staff slowly went about removing the purple fountains. Over time and
attrition, the purple fountains were removed. And again, over time,
leadership and staff personnel rotated out, and eventually the original
reason of why the purple fountains even existed in the first place was
lost to most, thus the various urban legends that subsequently built up
around the purple fountain.

I offer this as an interesting tidbit to the much storied Pentagon, and as
a poke-in-the-eye of the grossly politically spun "official" explanation
versus reality.

[ASL]

Originally Posted by snopes

I offer this as an interesting tidbit to the much storied Pentagon, and as
a poke-in-the-eye of the grossly politically spun "official" explanation
versus reality.

I love the automatic assumption that the unverified "real" explanation is obviously true and accepted without question.

[lord_feldon]

Hmm, and I always thought the right way to combat evil "political correctness" was to cover up the past, not tell stories about the pervasiveness of racism in society.

[rangerdog]

I can't say yea or nay because despite having worked at the Pentagon for years I have never heard of this tale.