Special Feature:
San Jacinto Battleground State Park
Battleship Texas Hard Hat Tour
La Porte (Houston), Texas
January 18, 2003
Engineering Spaces 1
Lower Drying Room, Blower Room
From the 3rd deck, the tour took us through a very small hatch that led into a large space called the Lower Drying Room, named as such because it was a popular place for the crew to hang their laundry. The main purpose of the drying rooms was to route the boiler uptakes to the smokestack as well as passage for the trunks taking clean air down. We looked up a ladder to the upper spaces and then proceeded down a steep ladder (heading for the boiler room) to pause at the blower room, which contained squirrel-cage blowers used to put positive pressure in the boiler rooms themselves when the ship was operating at her upper speeds. In the drying room we met another helpful First Texas Volunteer on station to share his expertise with the ship's boilers and engineering systems.
The Photos
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Lower Drying Room
Blower Room
For More Information:
San Jacinto Battleground State Historical Park
USS Texas Volunteers Hard Hat Tour Information
USS Texas History and Information