Armory of the First Corps of Cadets

The Armory of the First Corps of Cadets stands out in the cityscape as a medieval fortress complete with a crenellated six-story tower, machicolation, and a winged dragon. Designed by William Gibbons Preston and built between eighteen ninety-one and eighteen ninety-seven, the granite structure was fashioned to serve as a secure headquarters for the First Corps of Cadets, a private military organization founded in seventeen forty-one to guard the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.