From the Earth to the Moon in Bloomington, MN

From the Earth to the Moon is an 1865 novel by Jules Verne. It tells the story of the Baltimore Gun Club, a post-American Civil War society of weapons enthusiasts, and their attempts to build an enormous Columbiad space gun and launch three people-the Gun Club's president, his Philadelphian armor-making rival, and a French poet-in a projectile with the goal of a moon landing. The character of Michel Ardan, the French member of the party in the novel, was inspired by the real-life photographer Félix Nadar.