Dubuque Shot Tower-1861

GRAVES, TALLMAN

Posted By: Anne Hermann (email)
Date: 12/14/2008 at 09:38:50

Dubuque Weekly Times, June 20, 1861.

SHOT TOWER-It is well built of stone and brick, 150 feet in height, and erected in the flush times of 1856, at an expense of more than $15,000. The original owners became involved and were unable to run it after it was completed. It has been sold and re-sold upon different decrees of the court and on mortgages until at last it is in the hands of our enterprising young townsman J. K. Graves, Esq. He has associated with him other men of experience and these uniting with him will start again in the business of making shot of all sizes on Monday next.
The present low price of lead has made it an inducement once more to embark in this undertaking. The tower will make, when run to its full capacity, from 5,000 to 8,000 lbs of shot daily, and would, if run constantly, use up one-half of the entire lead crop of the Dubuque mines.
P. Tallman, Esq., the former Superintendent, will have charge of the manufacture. For the convenience of sportsmen he will make a great improvement in the manner of packing the shot. Heretofore it has always been put up in twenty-five pound sacks, but he will put up half sacks containing twelve pounds and quarter sacks with six pounds. These small packages will be very popular with sportsmen, as many gentlemen who go out for a day’s shooting, do not wish to purchase a full sack.
It is very gratifying to see an enterprise of this character reviving at a season of such general prostration. We hope our jobbing merchants will extend every encouragement they possibly can to this manufactory and give them the preference always when they can consistently with their own interests. We sincerely hope this company may soon carry out their intentions of making shot lead and lead pipe, and eventually make white lead for the whole upper Mississippi Valley.