MassachusettsA contributing property in the Springfield Armory National Historic Site, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. A National Historic Landmark comprising Armory Square, the fifty-four-acre hilltop administrative core of the Springfield Armory, the federal arsenal formally established in 1794. Arranged around an 8.75-acre parade ground, the complex holds nearly thirty brick buildings, mostly in a restrained functional idiom with Greek Revival and Federal detailing, ranging in date from the 1807 West Arsenal through World War II, unified by consistent scale, white trim, slate roofs, and a mid-19th-century iron fence. The Armory served the American Revolution as a supply depot, was the target of Shays' Rebellion in 1787, pioneered the interchangeability of parts, and for decades was the nation's principal manufacturer of military small arms. It is significant in military and industrial history and as the best-preserved administrative center of a major arsenal that reached its greatest growth in the first half of the 19th century.
Springfield Armory - Circular Driveways
The places that make Massachusetts, Massachusetts.
Springfield Armory - Circular Driveways is a landmark in Springfield, Hampden County. It is one of 3,654 landmarks documented in Hampden County, among 3,815 historic sites cataloged across the county on MassRoam.
The site sits at 42.1074, -72.5822 near Springfield. The nearest cataloged historic site is Springfield Armory - Flagstone Walkway (landmark), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include Springfield Arsenal - Main Arsenal, Milestone, 1767, and Springfield Armory - Light Standards.
This record is drawn from public historical records. Use the map below for its exact position and turn-by-turn directions.
George Washington personally approved this bluff above the Connecticut River as an arsenal site in 1777, and the formal drives on Armory Hill organize the parade ground around the 1847 Main Arsenal, the building Longfellow had visited in 1843 and immortalized as "The Arsenal at Springfield." Shays' Regulators marched on these grounds in January 1787 and were driven off by grapeshot. The distinctive iron fence enclosing the grounds was completed in 1890 from obsolete cannon that Major James W. Ripley had melted down when no money could be found to buy one.
Sources: en.wikipedia.orgnps.gov
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