Excerpt from War's Greatest Workshop, Rock Island Arsenal: Historical, Topographical and Illustrative The building of Fort Armstrong in the year 1816, as a frontier post of the United States army, is very properly regarded as the starting point in the History of Rock Island Arsenal, and as the opening of the four periods in which its story may be told. Col. Lawrence Superintended the fort's erection, and he was retained on the Island in command of the Eighth U. S. Infantry. This may be classed as the first epoch in the history of the Arsenal. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.