Mystery cannon to be centerpiece at Spanish Ft. City Hall
“You don’t want people digging up everywhere, trying to find artifacts and those kind of things,” explained Spanish Fort mayor, Mike McMillan. “It was during an excavation of a business site and it was found.
” Spanish Fort and the surrounding area is steeped in Civil War history and it would be easy to assume the cannon was left over from the war. That’s not the case, though and this is where the mystery deepens. Experts from Alabama and the Florida Department of State, where the cannon was restored have no idea, other than it’s very old. The 8.5' cannon recently returned to Spanish Ft. from the Florida Dept. of State where it went through a preservation process “It’s not really known when it got here or how it got here but it goes against all theories about people or cannons being here to our prior knowledge,” McMillan said. “They’re thinking it may have come over from Pensacola during the De Luna expeditions over here but there’s no way to know just yet.” It is believed the cannon predates the Revolutionary War, so it is a head-scratcher. The shroud of mystery sits well though, with some residents. “Big question mark, so now I’m going to go home and read up as much as I can find out about Spanish Fort because I didn’t know anything. So now, yeah. That’s going to be intriguing,” said Spanish Fort resident, Wanda Piepho. As a compliment to City Hall’s new addition, four donated, Civil War-era cannons will also be put on display. There’s no mystery behind them. They were in Jamaica before finding their way here for display. The mystery cannon weighs in at more than 1,000 pounds. The display foundation should be finished in the next couple weeks and the city hopes to have the display up sometime in June 2022.Download the FOX10 Weather App. Get life-saving severe weather warnings and alerts for your location no matter where you are. Available free in the