Brass Bowl

Below are pictures of the artillery piece that is emplaced on the grounds of the Henry B Plant Museum. I have collaged the inscriptions on the base to show the story that is being told. However, the story does not end with the inscriptions on the bottom of the gun.

From the Wikipedia entry of Henry B. Plant Museum;

“Facing Kennedy Boulevard in Plant Park is another historic cannon, this one being an impressive turn-of-the-century coast defense gun. It memorializes the 1898 Spanish American War and symbolically points south towards Cuba. The inscription on the cannon’s monumental base describes it as an eight-inch gun on a “disappearing carriage” taken from Fort Dade, an old coast defense fort on Egmont Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay. The true story is however a bit more complicated.

The original Fort Dade gun described on the base was emplaced in Plant Park in November of 1927, but was donated to a steel scrap drive during World War II. Following the war, an eight-inch cannon of similar vintage was obtained from Fort Morgan, Alabama and installed on the 1927 memorial’s vacant foundation. The new gun is mounted on the top portion of a railway gun carriage dating from World War I rather than the “disappearing carriage” of the original Fort Dade cannon. ”

Here is additional information on this gun.