Talk:Phoenix Shot Tower

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Round corners?[edit]

From the article:

"Charles Carroll of Carrollton...laid its cornerstone."

A structure without corners has a cornerstone? I believe in these cases it's called a "foundation stone". Can anyone confirm? 12.22.250.4 20:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Copyvio?[edit]

This paragraph is a verbatim copy of text from http://www.ce.jhu.edu/baltimorestructures/Shot%20Tower/shot_tower.htm, except for my capitalization of "City":

"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."

Even though the information has a source citation, it still should not appear in the exact same form as the original source unless it's presented as a direct quote. That's called plagiarism. 12.22.250.4 20:39, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Merchants' " or "Merchant's"?[edit]

The second name of the Shot Tower and that of its owning company appears both as "Merchants' " and as "Merchant's" in the article. The NPS has it both ways on different pages, and an LoC article linked to one of the sources has it as "Merchants' ". Can anyone confirm the correct form? 12.22.250.4 20:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Visited the Phoenix Shot Tower yesterday and learned it's been apostrophesized inconsistently throughout the history of the tower, even while the tower was in operation. I'd be inclined to say there is no proper form. Shmuser (talk) 20:25, 28 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Phoenix Shot Tower" as title of article?[edit]

The main title of this article is the "Phoenix Shot Tower." This may cause some confusion, because this landmark is in the city of Baltimore, not Phoenix. Very few Baltimoreans currently know this structure as the "Phoenix" Shot Tower. The subway station at the location is simply called "Shot Tower." The article instead should be titled something like "Baltimore Shot Tower," with mention that it is also known as . . .

I would go ahead and make this change, but I first want to get some feedback. Sebwite 16:21, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it's confusing. Instead of Baltimore Shot Tower, Shot tower (Baltimore) or Shot Tower (Baltimore) seem better to me, so we're clearly discussing a specific instance of a thing instead of creating another proper name for it. In fact,[1] that latter name is where this page originally was created. It was later moved to its present page-name precisely because that's it's official name. The magic of #REDIRECT allows one to find it at that alternate name (and creating another redirect at Shot tower (Baltimore) might be a good idea. DMacks 19:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I never knew that it was called this until I was creating articles in which the Shot Tower had to be mentioned, and I discovered it when I was having trouble getting them to link correctly. Sebwite 19:55, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Move[edit]

Article moved away from official name to a colloquial reference. --evrik ^(talk) 17:45, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Concur that this was not a good move. Either use its official name or use its generic name with a parenthetical disambiguation. I have no objection to redirects from colloquial well-known unofficial names (of the redirects aren't working or are diffiult to link, then that is the problem that needs to be solved directly in its own right). DMacks (talk) 17:58, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Using the name "Phoenix" in the title is confusing. This is a name people most associate with Phoenix, Arizona. I had trouble finding this article initially for this reason - I have visited this landmark on multiple occasions, and I never knew it was called the "Phoenix" Shot Tower.Sebwite (talk) 21:52, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's exactly the point of a redirect: you don't have to know the formal exact name. DMacks (talk) 21:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. We should call it what most people call it. We don't do official names unless English usually does; for some explanation why, see WP:Official names. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:35, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm not sure "Baltimore Shot Tower" is what most people call it. GHits are evenly split between Baltimore… and Phoenix…, both among formal publications and among bloggish stuff. Locals (i.e., subway station, tourist and other maps I've seen, etc.) call it Phoenix… or just "The Shot Tower". Conversely, there were actually several shot towers in Baltimore (though no others extant and I don't imagine we're going to have pages about them anytime soon). It looks like most other shot tower pages either use formal names (which often do not correspond to their stated locations) or else use a disambiguation style ("Shot Tower (somewhere)"). DMacks (talk) 06:51, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and made the move. --evrik ^(talk) 23:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Other Baltimore shot towers[edit]

Came across some additional refs about the others, figured here's the best place to note it for anyone in the future:

"History of Filth". Preservation Alliance of Baltimore County. Retrieved 2019-05-03.

"Baltimore City had four shot towers...A shorter tower used an air draft to eliminate the need for great height; that was the Baltimore Lead Works Company tower on the south side of Montgomery Street east of Howard. James Robertson and Company built it in 1877. In 1910, the B. & O. railroad bought the works, tore down the building, and tracked over the location. Then at the end of the century, the tracks and site were used to build the Camden Yards at Oriole Park. The site could well lie under an approach ramp to Interstate 395, depending on the accuracy of the ADC Street Atlas...The other two shot towers that were demolished were Gist’s and Wolfe’s. Gist’s was on South Eutaw Street roughly at the south end of the present Camden Yards Warehouse, while Wolfe’s was on the west side of Gay Street in the present War Memorial Plaza."

DMacks (talk) 02:30, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Baltimore's Shot Towers". April 7, 2018.

[whole article about the history of the various companies]

DMacks (talk) 02:37, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Persistent misinformation about shot towers[edit]

A shot tower is not capable of creating large diameter lead shot, let alone shot of sufficiently precise diameter to be used in rifles or pistols. Shot towers were built to manufacture small diameter lead shot for shotguns, to be used for hunting small game and birds. They did not manufacture military ammunition: military usage of small lead shot was trivial, restricted to "foraging" ammunition used to supplement issued rations on the frontier.

Bullets for use in rifles and pistols might be produced at a shot tower site, but the shot tower itself had nothing to do with such production. Bullets were cast in molds, not dropped from a height into water. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.178.166.3 (talk) 14:34, 15 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]