Bannerman’s Castle, one of today’s modern ruins and one of the
few castles left in the United States. Finished in 1918 this
castle was home to the world’s largest arms dealer and was his
home and warehouse. Francis Bannerman is known to have bought
most of the military surplus left after the Spanish-American
War. This castle was his legacy. “Resting in the Hudson River,
on Pollepel Island, is a crumbling hulk of intricate concrete
and brickwork that was once Bannerman’s Arsenal. In 1900,
Francis Bannerman VI bought the island to store ammunition for
his prosperous military surplus business; more specifically,
when he bought 90% of the US army surplus after the Spanish-
American War ended and needed a place outside of New York City
to store it all. The arsenal (sometimes referred to as
“Bannerman’s Castle”) was constructed from 1901 to 1908, and was
modeled similar to the architecture of an old Scottish castle. A
storm in 1950 sunk the ferryboat that served the island,
Pollepel, and the arsenal was left more or