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New Ordnance Foundry
New Ordnance Foundry


New Ordnance Foundry (23)

Washington Navy Yard, 8th and M streets, SE
Constructed in 1863-64, demolished

While employed at the Ordnance Department at the Washington Navy Yard during the Civil War, Adolf Cluss drafted gun designs and constructed his first building, the New Ordnance Foundry. His 1860 drawing of the foundry reveals that the building not only housed the armory, but also contained a plant for making modern high-power guns. The Washington Evening Star described the still-unfinished foundry in 1864. It contained 18 furnaces, and was "all brick and iron, and it is very massive, an almost incredible number of brick having been laid already." The Star estimated the cost of the new foundry at well over $150,000. It noted "It is on an entirely new plan - no other foundry in the country being adapted to casting guns above ground."

Cluss's list of public buildings written in 1889 includes "numerous buildings at the U.S. Navy Yard, Washington." Included among them were the Powder Magazines, another may have been the Marine Corps Barracks. Additional buildings have not yet been identified.

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