The Dream City, Paul V. Galvin 
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  THE BATTLESHIP ILLINOIS - The sinking of the British battleship Victoria, a model of which was exhibited in the Transportation Building, gave a melancholy but not less eager interest to the United States marine exhibit at the northern pier, where a ship of war modeled on the latest patterns adopted by the Navy Department, was exposed to the closest public scrutiny and study. The engraving shows the structure of brick, built on the bottom of the lake, and simulating a man-of-war, which was conceived by Commodore R. W. Meade, and furnished with all the implements of human slaughter. Thus built, it was a full-sized model, above water-line, of the ten thousand three hundred ton coast-line battleships Massachusetts, Indiana, and Oregon of our navy, and if no mistake be made, the creation of such a ship in Lake Michigan in reality would violate a treaty with Great Britain. The principal guns seen on this vessel were of wood, but there were enough machines on board which were genuine to destroy almost anything of ordinary resisting power that might be within a distance of three miiles. A nearer view of the upper deck and search light is shown on another page. Among the real guns on board were four six-inch rifled breech-loaders; twenty six-pounders; six one-pounders, two Gatlings and six torpedo guns. The interior was a museum of war, in which a student might be kept busy for months. The length was over three hundred and forty-eight feet; greatest width, sixty-nine feet; conning tower, seventy-six feet high. Designer, Frank W. Grogan. Cost, $100,000.
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Digital History Collection
Page created: August 26, 1998