Fort Point served as a bastion of defense again enemies who never cam
Westerners brought many things when the came to the Bay Area, technology, new re gion and massive greed. Among these wa paranoia — a fear of others slipping in and disrupti the nice life they were making.
The focus of this paranoia was a mile-wide strip o water below what’s now the Golden Gate Bridge. If y look at a map of the San Francisco Bay, it’s like a vas front door left open to anybody who wants to cruise and poke around. Early on, the concern was a Britis invasion. Then it was the Confederate States Navy — existed and not just in the South — and then Japane and German forces during World War II.
Several measures were proposed to guard this entrance. A never-realized idea from the 1860s was t string a cable all the way across the water to clothe line ships, professional-wrestler style. There actuall was a physical barrier during the 1940s — a retracta metal-mesh net — to snag intruding U-boats. None was ever found in the Bay, so supposedly it worked, doubt to the annoyance of larger marine mammals.
The most practical solution was a fort. The Span ish, realizing the narrows were key to controlling the region, built one called Castillo de San Joaquin in 1794. It was a funny-shaped adobe structure that could rain down fire from a perch roughly 100 feet above the water. When the Americans captured California in the mid-1800s, they wanted a fort clos to water level to bounce cannonballs over the wave like deadly skipping stones. Hundreds of workers — many of them miners who got skunked in the Gold Rush — physically lowered the ground, excavating t building site to just above Bay level.
Thus was born Fort Point, now a U.S. National
ite, an enormous hat invites exploration — on the grounds, atop p where cannons were nted and in the open air ounds at the fort’s center as inside. r-story building, despite de from millions of ks rather humble in the assive shadow. But in t was a mighty presence, might make a Confederr wet his trousers. as the only fort of its west of the Mississippi,” Martini, a retired Nak Service ranger. “There t 40 forts built with this esign scheme, but they g the Atlantic and Gulf at the government spent build a cutting-edge rt way out here in the ws the importance of during the Gold Rush.” i knows the fort well, rked there in the 1970s en two historical books The idea was to build tory forts, so that cand be stacked one upon to maximize firepower,” s. t employed four types of devastating cannonballs. was a plain ol’ hunk of flew at a thousand feet d to smash through the of warships. Another al eggshell filled with at could explode into and a third was a sack hot that tore up rigging t shotgun blast. The last olid iron, but heated unin a furnace so it would s on fire. balls from enemies ply ricochet off the foot-thick carapace. It a formidable defense is day, an enduring f the mason’s art. idn’t have diesel-powhinery swinging around of granite. It was all
done with portable cranes and either strong backs or wheel power. The fact they were able to build the thing as fast as they did — they started in 1853, and it was almost finished in 1861, when the Civil War began — is remarkable,” says Martini.
“I’m such a nerd,” he adds,
“that I walk around looking at the arched ceilings and notice how the bricks were hand-cut at very specific angles to form intricate arches. It was done without electrical or hydraulic machinery and was just laborious. I don’t think it’s a craftsmanship we see much of nowadays.”
During the Civil War, the fort was occupied by dozens of soldiers, cooks, surgeons, laundresses and prisoners with 12-pound balls attached to their legs. By most accounts, it was not a nice place to stay. A contemporary sanitary inspector wrote:
“This Fort, as is well known, consists of a mass of granite and brick, situated at the entrance of the Golden Gate, presenting a bold front to the Ocean. And while its massive walls afford safe protection to its big guns, its interior arrangements offer but a cold and cheerless habitation to the soldier.”
Dense fog enveloped the grounds for 260-plus days a year. It kept the walls damp and the floors puddled with water. Soldiers tried to stay warm by