Phoenix Shot Tower - Baltimore, Maryland
N 39° 17.452 W 076° 36.335
18S E 361537 N 4350283
The Shot Tower was a lead shot manufacturing facility in operation from 1828 when it was built to 1892. More than fifty years passed before the Shot Tower was opened to the public as a museum.
Waymark Code: WMHTY3
Location: Maryland, United States
Date Posted: 08/13/2013
Views: 15
40. The SHOT TOWER, Fayette and Front Sts., a tapering, cylindrical brick structure, 234 feet high, was once used in the manufacture of shot. Molten lead poured through a sieve at the top hardened into round pellets as it fell. -- Page 228; Maryland: A Guide to the Old Line State
Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, laid its cornerstone. Over 234 feet high, the Shot Tower was the tallest structure in the United States until the Washington Monument in Washington, DC was completed after the Civil War. This type of building was rare even during the 19th century and today only eleven shot towers remain in existence. Of these four, the Shot Tower is the most outstanding example. This National Historic Landmark is also an excellent example of the simple elegance that can be achieved in the design of industrial architecture.
The Shot Tower is located at the southeast corner of Fayette and Front Sts. Once part of the Baltimore City Life Museums, the tower is currently not open to the public. SOURCE
The Shot Tower was a lead shot manufacturing facility in operation from 1828 to 1892. Known originally as the Phoenix Shot, then the Merchants' Shot Tower and now the old Baltimore Shot Tower, the red brick tower was erected in 1828.