The historic "Zawada" Water Supply Station in Karchowice is a complex of buildings, steam pumping devices and boilers from the 1920s.
Built on the initiative of the Prussian government in 1895, it was to help solve the urgent problem of drinking water supply for the emerging plants and growing cities and settlements in the western part of the Upper Silesian Industrial District.
The station was repeatedly expanded and modernized, and until 1967 it was based on steam-driven pumping units produced in huge boilers. Today, crystal clear water drawn from, among others, from a deep well bored in 1882 to a depth of approx. 200 m, it is pumped to recipients by modern electric units.
By a happy coincidence and the efforts of subsequent generations of employees of the Zawadzkie waterworks (now the plant is part of Górnośląskie Przedsiębiorstwo Wodociągów SA in Katowice), the monumental, historic devices from the steam era have survived to modern times, and everyone willing to move back in time a hundred years - since 2004 r. available for sightseeing.