Phoenix Shot Tower - History

History

The tower remained the tallest structure in the United States until 1846, when Trinity Church, New York on Wall Street was erected, and also probably in Baltimore until the completion of the spire on the fourth structure, a Gothic brownstone First Presbyterian Church at West Madison Street and Park Avenue in the Mount Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood in 1875. Also followed in 1911 by the erection of the first modern steel skyscraper "Munsey Building" at North Calvert and East Fayette Streets in downtown, then the tallest "building".

The shot tower was originally owned by the Merchant's Shot Tower Company which closed in 1898.

In 1921 the tower was purchased for $14,500 by the Union Oil Company, which planned to tear it down and put a gas station 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.

The tower was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1972 and a bronze plaque was attached to the tower's brick wall at the base. In the early 1980s, the management and exhibits/tours for the Shot Tower were combined with those of the former Peale Museum on Holliday Street, between East Lexington and Saratoga Streets which had become the city's Municipal Museum in 1931. In addition, other historic sites and homes were soon added under the umbrella of a new institution - the "Baltimore City Life Museums" in the mid 1980s's which also merged the Shot Tower's exhibits and tours with the following historical sites:

Carroll Mansion (townhouse of Charles Carroll of Carrollton in Jonestown/Old Town, at East Lombard and South Front Streets/President Street Boulevard). A nearby row of 1840s-era small rowhouses which were restored as "The 1840 House" on East Lombard and Albemarle Streets showing the domestic life and times of the era.

The H.L.Mencken House on Hollins Street in the Union Square neighborhood of old West Baltimore.

Across the street was a new concept in historical exhibition: "Brewer's Park" - an archeological-excavated park with an outlined open-beamed structure representing the site of the original brewery owned by Mayor Edward Johnson later known more famously after the War of 1812 as "Claggett's Brewery" where Mary Young Pickersgill spread the sewn Star Spangled Banner flag out on the large wooden floor to assemble it with her daughters and servants, just a block away from her home (now the Flag House) at East Pratt and Albemarle Streets in 1813, prior to its delivery to Lt. Col. George Armistead, commander at Fort McHenry prior to the British fleet's attack in the War of 1812 on September 12-14, 1814.

Finaly in 1996, a three-story exhibition gallery was added facing South Front Street/President Street Boulevard, north of the 1840 House using the old cast-iron front panels saved twenty-five years earlier, from the old Fava Fruit Company offices which were torn down in 1969 and now restored and repainted for a new life.

All these variety of homes, historical sites and galleries were combined in a somewhat unwieldy museum structured agency which was semi-independent from the city, run by an executive director, expanded professional staff and board of directors, with a budget of several million dollars contributed from various private sources and an annual subsidy from the city of about $350,000 a year to interprete the heritage and story of "The Monumental City" to its citizens - much more expansively then the old Peale Museum. After bearing the expanded debt load generated by the new construction and the problems of attracting a sufficiently larger audience and visitors to what was billed as "Museum Row" in Jonestown/Old Town and draw from the increasingly popular tourist sites around the "Inner Harbor" and the more expensive ticket prices of such newly-opened attractions like the new Harborplace shopping pavillions, the National Aquarium in Baltimore and the "Power Plant" (an indoor Victorian-era amusement park developed by the "Six Flags Over America" Company in the former coal-fired furnace plant for the old street-car system from the early 1900s), both located on the East Pratt Street piers. People wondered, What was the Shot Tower and what did it do? and viewed the exhibits and simulated shot-manufacturing and forging process in play. By late 1997, coincidentally during the Biccentennial Celebration of Baltimore's incorporation as a city (1797-1997), after being turned down by Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke for an additional extension of the annual subsidy from the municipal budget, the BCLM were placed in suspension and the individual historic sites were closed and over the next few years, different schemes were developed to try to "make money from them" and try to preserve their character and stories somehow. A terrible failure of the Baltimore community, that continued to haunt the city over 15 years later. Then, Baltimore City, now facing further tough financial times, is considering selling the landmark or re-developing it along with several of the others.