SHOT TOWERS
In old Baltimore, Maryland, you will see a structure that looks like an old-fashioned factory smoke stack. It rises 220 feet above the street and it was build in 1828 to make ammunition for muskets of that era.
There are other such towers, including one here in Virginia at Ft .Chiswell. You can see the square, brick tower on the south back of the New River when you cross bridge on Interstate 77 just south of I-81.
They were a part of our war efforts in the past and each played important, at times even critical, role in defending the nation in time of need.
The thing that fascinates me, however, about the shot tower in Baltimore, is that it was built from the inside without scaffolding on the outer sides. The builder followed the designer's plan which instructed him to mark out a one hundred twenty-nine foot circle on the ground. He then dug down, on an average, about seventeen feet until he found firm footing on which to place the construction. Thus prepared he started laying a six foot wall of brick around that circle, gradually bringing the inner surface inward by shortening the circumference, until he reached the height of two-hundred and thirty-four feet with an upper opening of just eighteen inches!
Known as the Phoenix Shot Tower, it was in operation from 1828 to 1892. Molten metal was dropped from the upper region of the tower through a sieve-live gadget and fell in a tank of cold water at the base. When hardened, dried and polished each ball formed in the fall became a usable shot. The tower could make over a million bags of shot per year... double that if needed. For smaller sizes of shot, the molten metal was dropped from points below the top platform through different screens. The tower was dedicated by Charles Carroll, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and was, until the Washington Monument was finished after the Civil War was the tallest structure in the United States
The Shot Tower in southwestern Virginia is less impressive, but it played a vital role in both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, having been built in l804. It as functioned largely in association with the famed lead and zinc mine in nearby Austinville and Ivanhoe, Virginia.
A.L.M. February 8, 2003 [c399wds]
