ONE MAN'S DREAM OF RESTORING WASHINGTON PARK FOUNTAIN COMES TRUE

By Juan Montoya
It took years, but persistence paid off for one local businessman.
During this year's SombreroFest, those attending often stopped to marvel at the water fountain in the middle of Washington Park.
For the first time many could remember, the fountain seemed to spew the water in different colors.
Believe it or not, it was through the persistent efforts of one man – local businessman Mario Villarreal – a former Port of Brownsville commissioner, which made it all possible.
For years after the original plumbing and light fixtures beneath the waters had corroded and the fountain simply pumped water, Villarreal literally hounded successive Parks and Recreation Dept. administrators to get it back to its original grandeur.
Mario Villarreal, president and owner of Pesa Enterprises and a former Public Utilities Board administrator and elected official, had tried for years to have the city restore the water fountain.
The fountain was built in 1929 and was heralded all over the area for its synchronized water geysers and multi-colored lights that drew visitors from throughout South Texas.
After decades of operating, the fountain was allowed to fall into disrepair, and was restored in time in December 1975 just in time to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the park. Some of those who helped to restore it were Frank and Fausto Yturria and Pansy Yturria.
In a petition circulated back in May 2005,  local luminaries like developer Bill Hudson, Villarreal, former city commissioner Ernesto De Leon, Rudy Falcon, the late Port of Brownsville commissioner Dan Reyna, among others, urged the city to "repair the fountain to its original condition."
When Mario Villarreal's father Faustino and A.S. Garcia, an employee at Putegnat Hardware joined Mary Yturria and other City of Brownsville administrators way back in the 1960s to work on the Washington Park fountain, it was already a city landmark known throughout the Valley.
"My dad helped Miss Yturria and the other people at PUB to get the fountain to shoot out water and synchronize the different colors so that it looked like the water was changing colors," remembered Villarreal.,

Mary Yturria, who spoke before the city commissioners years later, said that repairing the fountain to its former greatness was her personal dream. She recalled the children of the city and nearby towns gathering around the cement pool to collect water in bottles to take home with them.
"They thought the water would remain colored when they got home," she said with a smile.
It seemed that Yturria's dream would never became reality as hard times fell on the old fountain. The old tubing that made the water shoot geysers as tall as 65 feet in the air and then diminish in size as the colored lights alternated eroded over time and had to be replaced. Until the recent restoration, the geysers were mere spouts of varying sizes that were colored by lights so dim they seem to be but of a single hue.
Workmen trying to get the water to shoot higher found that when the level of the water in the pool got too low, air seeped into the system and diminished the flow.
"When it gets to a certain level, air goes in the pipes and we have to purge it," said a worker. "The lights work, too, but they are not as bright as they used to be so they seem to be of only one color."
Villarreal has tried to work with the city to repair the fountain that was a source of pride for his late father. As a businessman who does extensive business in Mexico, he took it on his own to find the original replacement parts in the interior and passed along the information to the city.
"They already had a committee working on the fountain and they didn't pay much attention to what we told them," he said. "Instead they went out to other parts dealers in the United States and that's what we ended up with. It's was nothing like what it used to be."
"I have a personal relationship with that fountain because my dad worked on it," he said. "It's good to see it color up again l;ike it used to when it was first built. This time the city administration under city manager Charlie Cabler did the right thing and they deserve the credit."