(FRONT) The completed Gun Treatment Building, from Capt. Bakenhus, #1, 10/6/1922

DESCRIPTION:

Physically much smaller than any of the other progress photos of the NOP, two images (this being the first) forwarded by (and perhaps photographed by) CAPT. Reuben Bakenhus, the NOP's project manager during construction. As the last building to be completed, it may have been taken after the project's photographer had moved onto other tasks, yet photographic confirmation of the building's completion was still needed for Navy records.

 

CAPTION:

(on back) "Rec'd 10/6/1922 from Capt. Bakenhus."

 

DATE:

6 Oct 1922

 

SUBJECTS:

Gun Treatment (308)

 

CONTEXT:

The South Unit's Gun Treatment Building--the tallest structure in the Kanawha Valley when it was completed in 1921-22 (later supplanted by the rebuilt West Virginia State Capitol in the 1930s)--was intended to heat treat the largest gun barrels used by the U.S. Navy. While the plant was inactive between 1922 and 1939, however, aircraft carriers and submarines sapped much of the battleship's previous supremacy, and the Roosevelt Administration's view of maritime and industrial priorities had changed from that of the Wilson Era. The Gun Treatment Building was demolished in 1940-41 without ever having produced a gun barrel.

 

SOURCE:

National Archives, RG71-CA, Box 98, Folder H

 

CREATOR/ORIGIN:

Unknown / Unknown

 

MEDIUM:

Photographic print, black & white

 

COPYRIGHT:

None known

 

DID#:

4x6_71-CA-98H_BakenhusFront011

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