100 years ago today, water began flowing in The Fountain of Time, a massive 126-foot-long sculpture in Chicago—a tribute to the 100 years of peace between the United States and Great Britain following the Treaty of Ghent. Conceived and created by Lorado Taft, it sits in Washington Park on the city’s South Side.

Inspired by Henry Dobson’s poem Paradox of Time, it depicts 100 figures—from soldiers and kissing couples, to frolicking children—passing before a hooded Father Time who is carrying a scythe and stands before them amid a reflecting pool. Using a new material reinforced with steel, it was said to be the first of any kind of finished work of art made of concrete.