SPANISH FORT, Ala. (WALA) – The motto of the Spanish Fort Police Department is “Protect the Fort”. In a few weeks, he will have help, at least in a figurative sense. Five historical cannons will be placed outside the town hall. While not that unusual for this area, given the history, there is a lot of mystery surrounding the centerpiece of the new exhibit.

Work is already underway to build the foundations for the eight-and-a-half-foot gun. All city officials will say about her discovery is that she was found in 2017 “somewhere” in the Spanish fort.

“You don’t want people digging around trying to find artifacts and that kind of thing,” Spanish Fort Mayor Mike McMillan said. “It was during a search of a commercial site and he was found.”

The Spanish fort and its surroundings are steeped in Civil War history and it would be easy to assume that the cannon remained from the war. This is not the case, however, and this is where the mystery deepens. Experts in Alabama and the Florida State Department, where the barrel was restored, have no idea, other than that it is very old.

“It’s not clear exactly when he got here or how he got here, but it defeats all theories that people or guns are here that we know of,” McMillan said. “They think he may have come from Pensacola on the De Luna expeditions here, but there’s no way of knowing right now.”

The cannon is believed to predate the Revolutionary War, so it’s a puzzle. The Shroud of Mystery suits some Residents well.

“Big question mark, so now I’m going to go home and read everything I can find out about Spanish Fort because I didn’t know anything. So now, yeah. This is going to be intriguing,” resident Wanda Piepho said. of Spanish Fort.

As a complement to the new City Hall addition, four donated Civil War-era cannons will also be on display. There is no mystery behind them. They were in Jamaica before finding their way here for display.

The mystery cannon weighs over 1,000 pounds. The exhibit foundation is expected to be completed within the next two weeks and the city hopes to have the exhibit in June 2022.

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