Just south of West 12th Street on Sassafras Street in Erie, PA, stands a quiet relic of the city’s horse-powered past: a white, cylindrical iron horse trough that once quenched the thirst of coal-hauling teams in the early 20th century.

Originally installed to serve the horses working for the Wittman-Pfeffer Coal Company, which operated on the site beginning in 1905, the trough is a rare survivor from an era when “horseless carriages” were still a novelty. Though it now holds dirt instead of water, the trough remains in its original location—preserved thanks to the insistence of the Times Publishing Company when they built the Erie Times-News building nearby in 1970. It’s more than just a piece of cast iron; it’s a marker of Erie’s transition from industrial horsepower to modern infrastructure. In 2002, it even played a starring role in the newspaper’s “Great Key Hunt,” when a $2,500 prize key was hidden inside. Today, the trough is easy to miss, but for those who know where to look, it’s a charming and unexpected window into the city’s working-class history.