Springfield Armory
Springfield, Massachusetts
September 23, 2015
We spent a week on vacation back in Massachusetts, visiting family. While there we visited the Springfield Armory with our son-in-law. What originated as the Springfield Arsenal, a military supply depot, became known as Springfield Armory in 1794 when on-site small arms manufacturing was approved by President Washington. From 1794 until 1968, the facility was an armament factory run by the U.S. government, and it was famous for its rifles. One of the main buildings is preserved as a museum run by the National Park Service.
We first watched a video covering the history of the armory, which nicely set the context for the displays. The museum is divided into two areas, one explaining the development of the industrial processes and key inventions used at the armory, and the other section showcasing representative guns from the 18th through 20th centuries. In between is a large gift shop area. The entire museum is housed on a single floor within a red brick room which was one of the assembly shops for the armory when it was in business.
Around 1819 Thomas Blanchard invented a lathe which was capable of shaping irregular surfaces. This lathe dramatically reduced the time needed to make the stock of a rifle, and other industrial advances soon followed. The era of individually crafted guns gave way to mass production of guns with interchangeable parts. The Springfield Armory manufactured guns used in every U.S. war from the War of 1812 to the Vietnam War, and production progressed from flintlock muskets to M14’s.
The greatest number of employees at the Armory, mostly civilians, worked there in World War II from 1941-45 when over 14,000 men and women labored day and night fabricating the semi-automatic M-1 Garand rifle. The original Armory stretched over two city blocks in what was known as the “hill shops,” and this is the area we visited. Also associated with the Armory were the “water shops” located about a mile south on the Mill River, where heavy metal forging and machining was done as well as gun stock shaping. That is now a privately-owned industrial site, and we did not see it. We were told that although it is closed to the public the buildings are still there and can be viewed from the outside.
The park is open free of charge, including the museum. There is no on-site restaurant; we went out to dinner after our visit. Parking is free in front of the museum, and the facility is wheelchair-accessible.