rcmodel
Member in memoriam
This 30 pounder Parrett Rifle has been in a park next to city hall on the river here for as long as I can remember.
It was made at the West Point Foundry in Cold Springs N.Y. in 1863.
How or when it ended up in Kansas is beyond me, as the barrel alone weighs 4,200 pounds and it is 11' 2" long.
Not the sort of thing you can throw on a pack mule!
Anyway, one warm spring night about 1971?, one of the local boys got the wild idea so shoot it!
One of those "Here, hold my beer and watch this!" moments I guess.
Somehow he scrounged up 4 pounds of black powder, and some fuse.
Then he stole a 20 ft. log chain out of his old man’s truck.
About 3:00 AM, he loaded the cannon with 4 pounds of powder, newspapers for wadding, and tamped the log chain down the barrel.
(The standard charge was supposed to be about 3 pounds!)
Then he touched her off!
The resounding boom echoed up and down the river like a thunder-clap, and woke up half the city!
Back then the new bridge and the levy across the river had not been built yet.
So the impact area 500 yards across the river was a large grove of willow trees.
The log chain cut a swath through them you could drive two buses through side by side and not touch a tree!
A big to-do and much hand wringing was done by all the city leaders and police, but they never did find out who did it.
No it wasn't me, but I was pretty good friends with the guy who did!
The recoil shattered the concrete carriage it was mounted on then, and left the barrel laying on the ground.
Shortly after, the bore was spiked with concrete, the fuse hole plugged with steel, and the cannon remounted on a new concrete pedestal it rests on today.
rc
It was made at the West Point Foundry in Cold Springs N.Y. in 1863.
How or when it ended up in Kansas is beyond me, as the barrel alone weighs 4,200 pounds and it is 11' 2" long.
Not the sort of thing you can throw on a pack mule!
Anyway, one warm spring night about 1971?, one of the local boys got the wild idea so shoot it!
One of those "Here, hold my beer and watch this!" moments I guess.
Somehow he scrounged up 4 pounds of black powder, and some fuse.
Then he stole a 20 ft. log chain out of his old man’s truck.
About 3:00 AM, he loaded the cannon with 4 pounds of powder, newspapers for wadding, and tamped the log chain down the barrel.
(The standard charge was supposed to be about 3 pounds!)
Then he touched her off!
The resounding boom echoed up and down the river like a thunder-clap, and woke up half the city!
Back then the new bridge and the levy across the river had not been built yet.
So the impact area 500 yards across the river was a large grove of willow trees.
The log chain cut a swath through them you could drive two buses through side by side and not touch a tree!
A big to-do and much hand wringing was done by all the city leaders and police, but they never did find out who did it.
No it wasn't me, but I was pretty good friends with the guy who did!
The recoil shattered the concrete carriage it was mounted on then, and left the barrel laying on the ground.
Shortly after, the bore was spiked with concrete, the fuse hole plugged with steel, and the cannon remounted on a new concrete pedestal it rests on today.
rc
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