Springfield Armory Museum

Located in Springfield, Massachusetts, just a short distance from down town at the intersection of State and Federal Streets, is the Springfield Armory Museum. The Museum is a National Historic Site, maintained by the National Park Service. The grounds and buildings of the Springfield Armory have been transformed into the Springfield Technical Community College, STCC. But the Arsenal Building, at the far back of the property has been retained by the National Park Service and is a museum honoring the men and women that worked there and the weapons that they developed and manufactured for the United States Military.

Admission is free and it will take you about 2 hours to see all of the exhibits of firearms from the revolutionary period up to the beginning of the Viet Nam era. There are exhibits that show the tools and processes for both making weapons and for developing them. There are over 9000 weapons and associated items on display. There are a few examples of very early firearms, matchlocks and wheel-locks.

There is an interesting display comparing and contrasting the weapons made in Springfield to the ones made at the Armory in Harpers Ferry, Va. Springfield, being located in the industrialized North East went the route of automating as many of the processes as possible. While Harpers Ferry, continued the tradition of hand crafted weapons. It is interesting to see how these two diverging philosophies are reflected in the same type of rifle. Another display that quickly gets your attention is one that shows what happens when ammunition catastrophically misfires in the breech or barrel, or if a musket is struck by lightning.

So if you find yourself in the western part of New England, near the Connecticut river, this is a wonderful place to stop and spend a few hours seeing how the manufacture of firearms moved from the blacksmith’s forge to the machine shop/factory setting.

http://www.nps.gov/spar/

-- AlbinDrzewianowski - 29 Jan 2009