Frontier Firepower

Fort Randall saw many advances in weaponry during its lifetime as improvements in ammunition and firearms brought greater power and accuracy along with faster loading and firing. A magazine for storing weapons was one of the first buildings erected when Fort Randall was established in 1856, and in the 1870s a new brick magazine with an iron door provided greater safety and security for the fort's gunpowder and ammunition. Artillery there included four cannons, two 12-pounder Napoleon guns, two 10-pounder mountain howitzers, and a Gatling gun, the predecessor of the modern machine gun, which was designed in 1861 and used in the Civil War and on the frontier. The Springfield Model 1870 Trapdoor rifle was among the earliest breech-loading rifles manufactured in large quantities and took its name from a hinged breechblock that opened like a trapdoor.

Pickstown, South Dakota · United States