A powder tower (), occasionally also powder house (Pulverhaus), was a building used by the military or by mining companies, frequently a tower, to store gunpowder or, later, explosives. They were common until the 20th century, but were increasingly succeeded by gunpowder magazines and ammunition depots. The explosion of a powder tower could be catastrophic as, for example, in the Delft Explosion of 1654.

List of powder towers Buildings formerly used as powder towers include the following:

Germany These are sorted by states of Germany, since there are so many.

Baden-Württemberg Pulverturm, Leutkirch im Allgäu Pulverturm, Vellberg

Bavaria Pulverturm, Bad Reichenhall Pulverturm, Burghausen Färberturm, Gunzenhausen Pulverturm, Lindau Pulverturm, Memmingen Pulverturm, Munich Pulverturm, Ochsenfurt Pulverturm, Straubing

Brandenburg Pulverturm, Templin

Bremen

Lower Saxony Pulverturm, Bad Bentheim Knochenturm in Einbeck Pulverturm, Hameln Pulverturm Lingen, Ems Pulverturm, Oldenburg

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Pulverturm, Anklam

The Pulverturm, Demmin, bears the name, but was probably not used for this purpose.

North Rhine-Westphalia Langer Turm, Aachen Pulvertürmchen in Aachen Pulverturm, Meschede Buddenturm in Münster Pulverturm, Rheinberg Pulverturm, Wiedenbrück

Rhineland-Palatinate Pulverturm, Andernach Pulverturm, Linz am Rhein Pulverturm, Mainz

Saxony Pulverturm, Johanngeorgenstadt Pulverturm in Zwickau

Saxony-Anhalt Pulverturm, Quedlinburg

Thuringia Pulverturm, Greiz Pulverturm, Jena

Austria Pulverturm, Krems

Czechia Despite its name the Powder Tower in Prague was never actually used to store gunpowder

Italy Pulverturm, Schlanders

Latvia Powder Tower, Riga (Pulvertornis)

Namibia Powder Tower, Otjimbingwe, Namibia

Switzerland Malteserturm in Chur Pulverturm, Merano Pulverturm, Zofingen

USA Powder House (Dedham, Massachusetts)

Gallery

Literature Adolf Weinbrenner: Pulvermagazin, in Otto Lueger (ed.): Lexikon der gesamten Technik und ihrer Hilfswissenschaften, Vol. 7 Stuttgart, Leipzig 1909, pp. 274–275; digitalised at zeno.org

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