Shot Tower Historical State Park
Virginia State Park And National Historic Landmark; One Of Only Three Surviving Shot Towers In The United States, Built About 1807 · Foster Falls, Virginia
A seventy-five-foot stone tower standing on a bluff above the New River, built about 1807 by Thomas Jackson to make lead shot for the frontier, and one of only three shot towers still standing in the United States. The method it was built for is the whole point. Molten lead was carried to the top, poured through a perforated pan and allowed to fall - and because a falling droplet of liquid metal pulls itself into a sphere, a long enough drop into water produced round shot without a mould. Jackson needed a hundred and fifty feet of fall and the bluff gave him half of it free: the tower rises seventy-five feet above ground and a shaft was sunk seventy-five feet below it, with a tunnel driven in from the riverbank so the finished shot could be collected at the bottom. The lead came from his own mines at Austinville, a few miles upriver. The tower is now a National Historic Landmark, sits at Foster Falls on the fifty-seven-mile New River Trail, and the interior opens on a very limited seasonal schedule - the grounds and the trail are open far more often than the tower itself.
176 Orphanage Drive, Foster Falls, Virginia, 24360, United States
Grounds, bluff overlook and the New River Trail open daily, generally dawn to dusk, year round. THE TOWER INTERIOR IS OPEN ON A VERY LIMITED SEASONAL SCHEDULE ONLY, mainly in the warmer months and with a small staff - telephone before travelling if going inside is the point of the trip. A small charge applies for the tower when open, in addition to the parking fee.
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