Name/Title
Card, IndexEntry/Object ID
2013.015.0007Description
Card catalog created by Josephine Cowell the author of the book on the history of the Benicia Arsenal (1963). The file contains a couple hundred of 8 x 5 cards detailing the history of the Arsenal by year (1850-1958). The cards are the basis for the book but also contain a lot of details that didn't make it into the book. Some of the cards make reference to "king - chief ord report" (who was Colonel David M. King, Chief of Ordnance, intermittently during 1903, 1904, and 1905). He issued a yearly report that was summarized by Josephine Cowell in these files.
Some of the significant events are:
1894/95 - Testing of smokless gunpowder
1896/97 - Testing of smokless gunpowder
1898 - Obsolete Materials
1905 - First Arsenal Electricity
1906 - Earthquake
1907 - Electric Elevators Ordered
1908 - Electric Elevators Installed
1912 - Clock Tower Explosion
1913 - Fire Protection
1917 - WWI
1918 - WWI
1919 - Post WWI
1919 - Barracks Enlarged
1920 - Reorganization
1922 - Arsenal Fire
1924 - Benicia Barracks and Arsenal combined
1929 - Southern Pacific Railroad Bridge
1937 - Works Progress Administration (WPA) Projects
1939 - Shops modernizationCollection
Benicia Arsenal Collection
