Columbus-Belmont State Park
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Polk's giant chain, which is estimated to have been over a mile long before flooding and erosion destroyed part of it. With an anchor weighing between four and six tons and each chain link being eleven inches (279 mm) long, the Civilian Conservation Corps built a stone monument to hold the chain in 1934.
!["Lady Polk", a giant experimental cannon named for Polk's wife. At 10 feet (3.0 m) long and 15,000 pounds, the imposing gun bombarded Ulysses S. Grant's troops at the Battle of Belmont with 128-pound conical projectiles that it could fire up to three miles (5 km). However, repeated shots from the cannon heated and expanded the metal barrel, so when its last loaded but unfired shot from the Battle of Belmont was discharged two days later, the projectile was unable to escape the barrel, causing the cannon to explode into three pieces and killing 18 Confederate soldiers. A Federal newspaper soon after mocked that: "a person would be likely to consider himself as safe on one end [of the cannon] as the other."](https://photos.smugmug.com/GalleryFolders/State-Parks/ColumbusBelmont-State-Park/i-Mxn7LbM/5/d4167e6f/Ti/HR8_2538-Ti.jpg)