Springfield Armory National Historic Site Visit

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Reenacting business brought me to Springfield, MA today to meet with my tailor, while there I figured I should stop by the Museum at the Springfield Armory, I've been through the city a hundred times in my life but never made a stop until today. After a similar post I made about the Old Sturbridge Village Firearms Museum I thought I'd do a similar thing and take a bunch of photos for those who have not had an opportunity to stop by. I focused my attention and the photographs on the muzzle loaders as that is our focus here, but have included some of the breechloaders as many of us enjoy those as well. They have many more "modern" guns in M1 Garands, etc but I did not photo them. I'll include some notes with some of the photos, I hope you enjoy!

The museum is on the existing site of the Armory with the museum being housed in the main arsenal building, unfortunately Springfield, like many former bustling New England mill towns is known to be a rough town, the immediate grounds are nice, but there is a lot of construction in the area, the grounds directly in front of the arsenal look like they were recently tore up and in the process of having grass grown and new trees planted. Many of the other former buildings of the armory are used by various other entities including a technical college.

Looking northeast with the main building behind me, some of the extant buildings along the right.

The main arsenal building

 

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Looking up inside the front door at an impressive spiral staircase!

 

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Overview of the grounds and history of the development of the Armory.

 

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Blanchard's Lathe which greatly increased stock production

 

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Arguably the most non-muzzle loading post in the thread, their very impressive collection of reapeating/gatling/machine guns.

 

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A cool display case, the top piece was described as having been struck by lightning, and the others having various degrees of damage from handling and battle.

 

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The firearms section of the museum is built around this amazing centerpiece, this is the "organ of muskets" and it is an original double rifle rack which was used for the storage of newly made arms, it is believed to have been built sometime in the early 1830s. It could hold up to 1,100 arms and currently holds 645 M1861's and 3 M1816's, all of which were never issued out. Amazing glimpse into the past.

 

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That's it, I hope you enjoy the photos. Certainly a very cool spot, and if you are ever find yourself in western Mass it is definitely worth the stop!

 

[Brazos John]

Thanks for the tour!

 

[PathfinderNC]

Incredible- thank you for posting this. It will be liked over a lot more when time permits. There’s a whole lot to see!!!

 

[hawkeye2]

Thanks for all the photos. I was there 35 years ago and wish I could go back.