Fort Point National Historic Site
| Fort Point National Historic Site | |||
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| Location: | California , United States | ||
| Next city: | San Francisco | ||
| Surface: | 1 ha | ||
| Founding: | October 16, 1970 | ||
| Visitors: | 1,677,457 (2014) | ||
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Fort Point National Historic Site is a fortification in San Francisco , California , at the tip of the headland at the " Golden Gate ", the entrance to the San Francisco Bay . Since 1937 the fort has been spanned by a mighty steel frame arch at the beginning of the Golden Gate Bridge . In 1970, it was designated a National Historic Site under the administration of the National Park Service and made accessible to visitors.
history
In 1776, the Spanish Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza hoisted the Spanish flag at the site of today's fort with the order to build a military fortification to protect the northernmost point of the then viceroyalty of New Spain , thus laying the foundation stone for the San Francisco settlement. In 1794 the "Fort San Joaquim", built of adobe adobe bricks and equipped with nine to thirteen cannons, was finished and served as a security post for the Presidio in the neighboring bay. At that time the building site was located on a rocky cliff of limestone .
1821 won Mexico the independence of Spain and the fort was taken over by a small Mexican garrison. When it was moved to Sonoma in 1835 , the mud walls of Fort San Joaquim were in danger of crumbling.
After the Mexican-American War , California and with it San Francisco fell to the United States in 1848 . When gold was found that same year, the California gold rush began and California's population tripled within a few months. With the establishment of the US state of California in 1850, the US Army and Navy demanded the construction of fortresses for coastal protection. The US Congress approved the construction of a fort on Alcatraz Island , Fort Mason at the foot of the growing city and Fort Point on the headland to protect the entrance to the bay.
In the years 1853 to 1861 the crumbling Fort Joaquim and the rocky cliff were blown up and today's fort was built from brick. The walls of the fort are between 1.6 and 4 m thick, cisterns under the building are filled with rainwater and should also provide for a siege.
The fort consists of three floors and an open walkway around a courtyard. Each of the stories took in casemates 30 cannons , which through loopholes fired, 36 guns were on the handling and shot over a wall. The total of 126 cannons of different calibers fired bullets between 10 and 55 kg with an effective range of up to three kilometers. They covered the entire entrance to the bay and large parts of the port.
On the south side facing the land, the powder room , the small prison and storage rooms were on the ground floor . The officers had their quarters on the first floor, the men lived above. There was also an infirmary, a kitchen and workshops for the most important trades, such as carpenters and saddlers . The total strength of the crew was a maximum of 300 people.
In 1864, a steel lighthouse was built on one of the three stairwells to replace a smaller fire. With the new Fresnel lens , the signal light was visible ten to twelve nautical miles .
Fort Point was the only fort on the west coast to be built according to this plan; on the east coast there were 30 fortresses of the so-called Third System .
During the American Civil War , Fort Point stood guard against an attack that never came. The Confederates sent a single warship, the CSS Shenandoah, to the Pacific, where they attacked the Union's merchant fleet and took prizes . However, before a planned attack on San Francisco in 1865, the war ended, so Fort Point was never fired during the war.
From the experiences of the war on the east coast, the military leadership learned that this type of fort no longer offered any protection against modern weapons technology. In 1869 an additional granite wall was built in front of the lake and some cannons moved to a new, better protected position away from the fort. Even so, the era of the great forts was over and between 1892 and 1900 all of Fort Point's cannons were dismantled and sold for scrap value.
The fort was slated to be demolished for the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge between 1930 and 1937, but chief engineer Joseph Strauss changed his plans and erected a large arch of steel scaffolding over the fort to preserve it as an example of the art of brick construction. During the construction of the bridge, the fort served as a warehouse and office for the construction companies.
The US Army only used the fort as accommodation for soldiers from the neighboring presidium, for exercises and as a warehouse. In World War II it was temporarily reactivated and housed the crew of a steel network that the entrance of the bay in front of submarines to protect.
The fort was restored in the 1960s and designated a National Historic Site by Congress in 1970 . On October 16, 1970, Fort Point was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a Historic District . It can now be visited by the public, a small museum tells the history of the fort and its time.
Fort Point National Historic Site has no facilities of its own, but is co-administered by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area .
Trivia
- In 1958 Alfred Hitchcock shot an important scene in his film Vertigo - From the Realm of the Dead near Fort Point.
Web links
- National Park Service: Fort Point National Historic Site (official site; English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Entry in the National Register Information System . National Park Service , accessed May 21, 2016