Shot Tower - Spring Green, Wisconsin - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

The Helena Shot Tower was constructed in 1831 by Daniel Whitney of Green Bay. Most of the tower is actually a shaft dug through the sand stone by Thomas B Shauce. The tower itself is 60-foot tall with a shaft through the sandstone bluff adding an additional 120 feet for a total height of 180 feet. The shaft is connected to a 90-foot tunnel at the bottom which leads out to the Wisconsin River. The tower used a crew of 6 men and up to 5000 lbs of lead was dropped in the tower a day. Of this, only about 600 - 800 lbs of the shot was usable shot. The rest was hauled back to the top, remelted and dropped again. The tower remained in operation until 1860 when the tower became unprofitable due to a poor economy.

The tower is now in a Wisconsin State Park. The wood part of tower was reconstructed along with the smelter house.

Street address: SE of Spring Green in Tower Hill State Park Spring Green, Wisconsin County / Borough / Parish: Iowa County Year listed: 1973 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Event, Architecture/Engineering Periods of significance: 1825-1849 Historic function: Industry/Processing/Extraction Current function: Education, Landscape Privately owned?: no Season start / Season finish: From: 01/01/2007 To: 12/31/2007 Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Hours of operation: Not listed Secondary Website 1: Not listed Secondary Website 2: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   07/13/2022 Fogie_Knight visited it 07/14/2015 jmsd visited it 09/09/2009 8Nuts MotherGoose visited it 08/25/2008 rogheff visited it

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