Phoenix Shot Tower: Tallest Building in America

That two-hundred-and-thirty-four-foot brick tower you can see from the Jones Falls Expressway was once the tallest building in the United States. The Phoenix Shot Tower went up in eighteen twenty-eight, assembled from one-point-one million bricks in just six months, with no scaffolding. Charles Carroll, one of the last surviving signers of the Declaration of Independence, laid the cornerstone.

The tower made ammunition. Molten lead was poured through colanders at the top, falling the full height of the open shaft. As the droplets spun and cooled through the air, surface tension pulled them into perfect spheres. Workers collected the hardened pellets in a water barrel at the base, sorted them by size, and bagged them for sale. The tower produced two-and-a-half million pounds of shot per year. It held the title of tallest structure in the country until eighteen forty-six, standing more than fifty feet higher than the Washington Monument just across town. Production continued here until eighteen ninety-two.