The Phoenix Shot Tower, also known as the Old Baltimore Shot Tower, is a red brick

shot tower A shot tower is a tower designed for the production of small-diameter shot balls by free fall of molten lead, which is then caught in a water basin. The shot is primarily used for projectiles in shotguns, and for ballast, radiation shielding ...

, tall, located near the

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

Jonestown The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, better known by its informal name "Jonestown", was a remote settlement in Guyana established by the Peoples Temple, a U.S.–based cult under the leadership of Jim Jones. Jonestown became internationall ...

(also known later as Old Town), and

Little Italy Little Italy is a general name for an ethnic enclave populated primarily by Italians or people of Italian ancestry, usually in an urban neighborhood. The concept of "Little Italy" holds many different aspects of the Italian culture. There are s ...

communities of East

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, in

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. When it was completed in 1828 it was the tallest structure in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The tower was originally known as the "Phoenix Shot Tower", then the "Merchants' Shot Tower", and now is also sometimes called the "Old Baltimore Shot Tower". It is the only surviving shot tower among four that existed in Baltimore, and was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

on November 11, 1971. It was designated as a local Baltimore City Landmark on October 14, 1975. The Shot Tower lends its name to the nearby Shot Tower/Market Place station on the Baltimore Metro subway system's northeast line. Additionally, the original Baltimore Bullets were named in honor of its role in producing shot, as was the team that is now known as the

Washington Wizards The Washington Wizards are an American professional basketball team based in Washington, D.C. The Wizards compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference (NBA), Eastern Conference Southeast D ...

Design

The tower was built by Jacob Wolfe"An Engineer's Guide to Baltimore: Phoenix Shot Tower"
accessed May 6, 2007 using bricks manufactured by the Burns and Russell Company of Baltimore.

Charles Carroll of Carrollton Charles Carroll (September 19, 1737 – November 14, 1832), known as Charles Carroll of Carrollton or Charles Carroll III, was an Irish-American politician, planter, and signatory of the Declaration of Independence. He was the only Catholic sign ...

, a Roman Catholic lay leader, wealthiest man in America at that time and the only surviving signer of the

Declaration of Independence A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the ...

, laid its cornerstone on 4 July 1828. It was completed the same year. The circular brick structure's walls are thick from the bottom to about up; then they narrow in stages of each, until reaching a thickness of at the top.

Production

Molten

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

was dropped from a platform at the top of the tower, through a sieve-like device, into a vat of cold water at the bottom of the tower"Shot Tower"
National Park Service, accessed May 6, 2007 to produce "drop shot" for

musket A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually d ...

s. When hardened, dried, and polished, the shot was sorted into 25-pound bags. The annual production was about 100,000 bags of shot,Statement of Significance
at the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

's National Historic Landmark Program website, accessed May 6, 2007 with the capability of doubling that in case of high demand. The tower stopped producing shot in 1892, when a new method of making shot made the tower obsolete. It re-opened for a brief period of production at the beginning of the twentieth century, and then closed for good.''Phoenix Shot Tower''
, Carroll Museums, accessed May 6, 2007

History

The tower remained the tallest structure in the United States until 1846, when

Trinity Church, New York Trinity Church is a historic parish church in the Episcopal Diocese of New York, at the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Known for its history, location, architecture and e ...

Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...

was erected, and the tallest in Baltimore until the completion of the spire of the First Presbyterian Church at West Madison Street and Park Avenue in the Mount Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood in 1875. Behind the Scenes Tour of the Phoenix Shot Tower (6280561056)

Behind the Scenes Tour of the Phoenix Shot Tower (6280561056)

The shot tower was originally owned by the Merchants' Shot Tower Company which closed in 1898."Baltimore (Phoenix) Shot Tower"
National Park Service, accessed May 6, 2007 In 1921 the tower was purchased for $14,500 by the

Union Oil Company Union Oil Company of California, and its holding company Unocal Corporation, together known as Unocal was a major petroleum explorer and marketer in the late 19th century, through the 20th century, and into the early 21st century. It was headqu ...

, which planned to tear it down and put a

gas station A filling station, also known as a gas station () or petrol station (), is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Gasoline ...

in its place. After strong objections by the community, by 1928 enough money had been raised to purchase the tower and present it to the City of Baltimore as one of its first preserved local historic landmarks. Phoenix Shot Tower 04

The tower was designated a

in 1971 and a bronze plaque was attached to the tower's brick wall at the base. In the early 1980s, the management, exhibits, and tours were combined with those of the former

Peale Museum The Peale, located in Baltimore, Maryland, is Baltimore's Community Museum. Its mission is to evolve the role of museums in society by providing local creators and storytellers with the space and support the need to realize a complete and accessi ...

. In 1985, other historic sites and homes were added to the newly created Baltimore City Life Museums system. The BCLM was closed in 1997, and in 2002 Carroll Museums Inc. was created to manage both the

Carroll Mansion The Carroll Mansion (also known as the ''Carroll-Caton House'' or ''Carroll Mansion Museum'') is a historic building and museum located in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. History The house was built around 1811, at the corner of what is now known as ...

and the Shot Tower.

References

External links

Phoenix Shot Tower
- web page by Carroll Museums, the organization that maintains the tower as a museum

*[https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=phoenix+shot+tower&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=33.572881,60.46875&ie=UTF8&ll=39.290817,-76.605928&spn=0.008005,0.014763&z=16&iwloc=addr&layer=c&cbll=39.290779,-76.606064&panoid=N4ARw9UO3rZNi_vNdJygDw&cbp=12,102.25225550476045,,0,-24.825581395348827 Phoenix Shot Tower on Google Street View]
Explore Baltimore Heritage - Phoenix Shot Tower
* *, including undated photo, at Maryland Historical Trust {{Maryland museums National Historic Landmarks in Maryland Shot towers Towers completed in 1828 Industry museums in Maryland Museums in Baltimore Downtown Baltimore Historic American Buildings Survey in Baltimore Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Baltimore 1828 establishments in Maryland Baltimore City Landmarks