Fort Pickens Tour: Stop 8

Fort Pickens Self-guided Tour Stop 08

Quick Facts

Location:

Fort Pickens, Florida

Amenities

1 listed

Trailhead

Central Power Station

Engineers had a bright idea in 1903. They decided to install a central power station at Fort Pickens. You are standing in the power station. It provided outdoor and indoor lighting for the military post. The three casemates in front of you were originally meant for cannon.

In 1903, engineers turned these rooms into a central power station. Here they installed one 50-kilowatt Skinner-Willey generator. It also had one 8- and one 10-kilowatt General Electric generators. The station housed three engines, a switchboard, and three storage batteries. To power the generators, engineers built a boiler house outside the power station.

This building housed a 103-horsepower Babcock and Wilcox boiler, a feed pump, and heater. Coal was stored in a casemate near the sally port. By the 1920s, the Army no longer needed the central power station. The equipment was sold, and the boiler house demolished.

Help protect Fort Pickens. Please stay off the walls and do not pick up loose bricks.