Remember the Maine - Tampa FL - Spanish-American War Memorials on Waymarking.com

This Memorial to the Spanish American War is punctuated with 203mm Coastal Defense Gun. This was also the location headquarters for the Roosevelt Rough Riders.

THE FOLLOWING IS FROM (visit link)


"This historic cannon in Plant Park faces Kennedy Blvd. An impressive turn-of-the-century coastal defense gun, it memorializes the important role Tampa played in 1898 during the Spanish American War and symbolically points south towards Cuba.

The inscription on the cannon's monumental base describes it as an eight-inch (203 mm) gun on a "disappearing carriage" taken from Fort Dade, an old coast defense fort on Egmont Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay"



The USS Maine was a second-class pre-dreadnought 19th-century battleship of the United States Navy which exploded and sank in Havana Harbor, Cuba, on February 15, 1898. The sinking precipitated the Spanish–American War and also popularized the phrase Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain! Two hundred and sixty-six men lost their lives as a result of the explosion, and eight more died later from injuries. Captain Charles Sigsbee and most of the officers survived because their quarters were in the aft portion of the ship. Altogether, there were only 89 survivors, 18 of whom were officers. Originally thought to be caused by a Spanish mine, in subsequent years the cause of the sinking of the Maine became the subject of much speculation. The cause of the explosion that sank the ship remains an unsolved mystery.



The true story of this cannon is a bit more complicated than the inscription describes. The original Fort Dade gun described on the base was placed in Plant Park in November 1927, but was donated to a steel scrap drive during World War II. Following the war, this eight-inch (203 mm) cannon of similar vintage was obtained from Fort Morgan, Alabama and installed on the 1927 memorial's vacant plinth. The new gun is mounted on the top portion of a 1918 railway gun carriage dating from World War I rather than the "disappearing carriage" of the original Fort Dade cannon.

Type of memorial: Monument Location: Park Public or private: Public Who placed it?: Not listed When was it placed?: Not listed

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Please provide another photo of the memorial. If you want, you can be in it, but it's by no means necessary.

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