The building was in the form of an “H,” 500 feet long and 3¹⁄₂ stories high. It contained over 1400 machines, the greater part of which were designed and built on the premises. The tools and fixtures cost about as much as the machines themselves, a proportion unheard of before. In 1861 the plant was doubled. Three years later the first building was burned to the ground, but was immediately rebuilt. This plant was the largest private armory in the world and far-and-away the best then existing for economical and accurate production of a high-grade output. Many rivals have sprung up in the past sixty years, but the Colt Armory is still one of the leading gun factories of the world. Colonel Colt was a remarkable man, masterful, daring and brilliant. He started the larger industrial development of his city, and affected manufacturing methods more than any other man of his generation. [Illustration: FIGURE 32. THE COLT ARMORY FROM AN OLD WOOD-CUT] One of the elements of his success was his ability to gather and hold about him men of the highest order. Among these was Elisha K. Root, one of the ablest mechanics New England has ever produced. Root was a Massachusetts farmer’s boy, a few years older than Colt. He served an apprenticeship, worked at Ware and at Chicopee Falls, and came to the Collins Company, axe makers, at Collinsville, Conn., in 1832. He began work there as a lathe hand in the repair shop, but very soon became foreman and virtual superintendent. His inventions and methods converted a primitive shop into a modern factory and gave the Collins Company control, for a long time, of the American market, and opened up a large export trade. In 1845 he was made superintendent, and that same year was offered three important positions elsewhere, one of them that of master armorer at Springfield.