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 Fort
Pickens
Fort
Pickens is the largest of four forts built to defend Pensacola Bay, Florida
and its navy yard. The fort was begun in 1829, completed in 1834, and
used until the 1940s. Built in the age of wooden warships and cannons
firing round balls, the fort underwent changes in response to changes
in weaponry following the Civil War. Ten concrete gun batteries, including
one in the middle of the old fort, were built from the 1890s through the
1940s, each a response to a particular threat. Atomic bombs, guided missiles,
and long-range bombers made such forts obsolete by the end of World War
Two, and the Army abandoned the forts. Following extensive repairs by
the National Park Service, the fort was reopened in 1976.
 Fort
Barrancas
Fort Barrancas sits on a bluff overlooking the entrance to Pensacola Bay.
The natural advantages of this location have inspired engineers of three
nations to build forts. The British built the Royal Navy Redoubt here
in 1763 of earth and logs. The Spanish built two forts here around 1797.
Bateria de San Antonio was a masonry water battery at the foot of the
bluff. Above it was earth and log Fort San Carlos de Barrancas. American
engineers remodeled the water battery in 1838 and built a masonry fort
on the bluff between 1839 and 1844, connected by a tunnel to the water battery. This is the
current Fort Barrancas. A $1.2 million, eighteen-month restoration project
led to its reopening in 1980.
 The Advanced Redoubt of Fort Barrancas
The Advanced Redoubt of Fort Barrancas was built between 1845 and 1870
as part of a defensive network for the Pensacola Navy Yard. Fort Pickens,
McRee, and Barrancas protected the entrance to the harbor; Barrancas was
also to defend the peninsula on which the yard was established. The Advanced
Redoubt was designed to support Barrancas in this second role by anchoring
a line across the neck of the peninsula. It is unique among the American
forts at Pensacola in being designed solely for resisting an infantry
assault.
Fort
McRee
At the eastern end of Perdido Key is an area once used by the U.S.
Army to defend Pensacola Bay. A three-tiered fort with a detached water
battery called Fort McRee was built there between 1834 and 1839. During
the Civil War, the fort was heavily damaged in a massive artillery exchange
between Confederate forces at McRee and Barrancas, and Union forces at
Fort Pickens and onboard the ships Niagara and Richmond
in November 1861. Coastal erosion crumbled the foundations afterward,
and by the 1906 Hurricane destroyed Fort McRee. All that was left was
a single arch that eventually eroded away. The end of the island was still
called Fort McRee, and concrete Coast Artillery batteries were built there
in 1899, 1900 and 1942. Battery 233 was the last built and remains today.
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