The water tower is often the most prominent structure in many small western towns. Most of them are painted blue, and I suppose that makes sense, because water is blue. I've seen some with smiley-faces painted on them, or the town's name. I've seen one that has an added spout and handle so it looks like a teapot. That's quite creative! There's at least one in Minnesota with a landscape painted on it. I'm sure I've seen other interesting and unusual water towers over the years, but right this minute I can't think of any more.
Besides water towers, many small towns in farming areas have grain elevators. I've seen some towns that didn't amount to anything except grain elevators and a gas station and a post office. Now that's a tiny town!
If I was going to paint a water tower....well, first of all, I'd hire somebody else to do it, because I'm no artist and I'm also not fond of heights. But I think it would be fun to paint one with animals, like pets, or, if it's in ranching country, maybe cows and horses and pigs. Might as well make those structures interesting! In a larger city, maybe a flowers theme would look nice. Or would it be scary to have a giant sunflower constantly lurking overhead?