Fort Banks Mortar Battery is a historic mortar battery

Mortar (weapon)

A mortar is an indirect fire weapon that fires explosive projectiles known as bombs at low velocities, short ranges, and high-arcing ballistic trajectories. It is typically muzzle-loading and has a barrel length less than 15 times its caliber....

 on Kennedy Drive in Winthrop, Massachusetts

Winthrop, Massachusetts

The Town of Winthrop is a municipality in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population of Winthrop was 17,497 at the 2010 U.S. Census. It is an oceanside suburban community in Greater Boston situated at the north entrance to Boston Harbor and is very close to Logan International...

 that was part of the old Fort Banks

Fort Banks (Massachusetts)

Fort Banks was a U.S. Coast Artillery fort located in Winthrop, Massachusetts. It served to defend Boston Harbor from enemy attack from the sea and was built in the 1890s during what is known as the Endicott period, a time in which the coast defenses of the United States were seriously expanded and...

. It was originally built in 1892 and named for the Civil War general and congressman Nathaniel P. Banks It consisted of four concrete pits, arranged in a square, each of which had four 12 inch (300mm) diameter mortars which could throw an 800 pound (350 kg) shell 9 miles (14 km) to sea. The combination was known as an Abbott Quad. Because a mortar throws a shell in a very high arc, they could be mounted in pits, invisible to the ship which was the target, and therefore very hard for an attacker to silence. The powder charge, which was a bag loaded separately from the shell, weighed 65 pounds (30 kg).

There was a serious accident on the site on October 15, 1904, when, during practice, a charge went off without the breech of the mortar being fully closed. Four men were killed and nine others were seriously injured.

Later, anti-aircraft guns were added and the Fort became the base for the Army's 9th Artillery Regiment. It also had a 250 bed hospital. In the 1950s Nike anti-aircraft rockets were based on the site.

Of the four pits, only one, Mortar Pit B, remains, together with two underground bunkers leading off the pit. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

in 2007.

It is currently located in the middle of a residential neighborhood.