Back then in 1900, Scottish immigrant Francis Bannerman and his son David bought Pollepel Island and began construction on Bannerman Castle, a structure meant to imitate the castles of Bannerman's homeland. But Bannerman Castle wasn't a home or fortress. It was a storage facility with an interesting visual design. Bannerman used it for his business, which traded in surplus military goods from the U.S. Civil War (1861 to 1865) through World War I (1914 to 1918). After Bannerman's 1918 death, a freak explosion of stored munitions blew apart much of the castle
