18 - Setting a Deadly Obstacle Course

WAYSIDE PANEL TITLE: Setting a Deadly Obstacle Course
PANEL DESCRIPTION: The wayside is left of the Crissy Field kiosk and faces west.

VIEW FROM WAYSIDE: From where you stand in the middle of a large, open plaza, you're facing the bathrooms and maintenance buildings, two symmetrically identical, cream colored buildings, with red tile roofs. To the right, the Golden Gate Bridge stretches off to the right across the bay, with the rolling hills of the Marin Headlands behind it.

TEXT: Fort Point Mine Depot. The Fort Point Mine Depot was created to defend the West Coast's greatest harbor from enemy attack. Here, U.S. Army personnel assembled mines, loaded them on ships and planted them in minefields outside the Golden Gate. An enemy ship attempting to enter San Francisco Bay would have had to maneuver through a deadly obstacle course. Completed in 1910, the depot remained in the service through World War II.

DESCRIPTION OF IMAGE: A black and white photograph of a building with an angled roof, a double door entrance and two identical windows on either side of the doors, highlighting the symmetry of the building. A curved path leads up to the entrance.
CAPTION: Soldiers inserted explosives into the mines in their loading rooms. Extreme care was taken to ensure that no accidents occurred.

MAP DESCRIPTION: A map showing the coast you're standing on now, with a brown L-shape extending out over the water representing Torpedo Wharf, and white, rectangular blocks on the green area representing land. These blocks represent buildings, including the explosive storage facilities and the mine loading rooms.
DESCRIPTION IMAGE: Illustration of two devices side-by-side. Each has several sections, arranged in a vertical line, and tethered together by a rope at the bottom connecting them horizontally. The device on the left has a tan rectangular prism labeled "Planting Buoy" that looks like a brick with a ring through its center tied to a rope that descends and attaches to a gray sphere, labeled "mine case." Below the mine case is a metal clasp that attaches to the rope tether, labeled "mine shackle." Below the shackle, are two rope tethers running parallel to one another. One rope is short, and goes straight down, connecting to a gray circular prism, the shape of a hockey puck and labeled, "anchor." The other rope, which is knotted to the anchor, runs horizontally to the right, and is tied to a dark gray device shaped like a pie plate, with multiple cables sticking out from its sides like spokes on a wheel. This device is labeled "distribution box." On top of the distribution box, at its center, is an upside-down "U" shaped ring, like the top portion of a combination lock to which a rope is tied, extending upwards to a device, labeled "distribution box buoy" which resembles a barrel turned sideways, to which it is tied.

CAPTION: This schematic shows an underwater mine and distribution box, with temporary buoys that were placed during planting operations. Throughout the modern era of American harbor defenses (1890-1950), mines were considered to be one of the primary harbor defense weapons.

DIRECTIONS TO NEXT WAYSIDE: The next kiosk is one fifth of a mile away. To reach it, first walk 50 feet to the south to get around the Warming Hut, then turn left to start back east. In 100 feet you'll encounter a path to your left. Follow it 90 feet then turn right to head east along a cement path for 750 feet, or, just over one tenth of a mile to a kiosk on your right.