Battery Dynamite: A Failed Experiment

Soldiers firing a round out the battery's powerful gun.

In the forested area across Lincoln Boulevard is Battery Dynamite. In 1888, the US Army purchased some experimental "pneumatic dynamite guns." In non-technical terms, these guns shot payloads of dynamite for up to 3 miles out to sea. The guns used compressed air to fire charges, like a potato gun. The army set up two experimental dynamite batteries of three guns each, one here and the other at Sandy Hook, New Jersey.

Test shots were fired into the Pacific, but the guns were woefully inaccurate. Suitable only for killing large numbers of fish, the guns were declared obsolete and scrapped by 1901.