Why Build Fort Baker Here?

Fort Baker from above, looking out towards the bay.

Before you lies Fort Baker. Let your imagination carry you back. Way back to 1866, when San Francisco was a growing city and its harbor bustled with activity. This was still ranchland then, newly purchased by the army to build a brick fort to protect the harbor entrance... a fort to match Fort Point which still stands today across the Golden Gate Strait. But the new fort was never built. Steep cliffs hampered its construction and newly developed artillery could destroy brick forts. Instead, the army built a system of hidden and dispersed gun batteries on the surrounding hills from the 1870s to 1905.

General Nelson Miles spoke of the need for modernizing San Francisco's harbor defenses in 1897...

It is necessary to occupy new ground and to adopt a new system to defend Pacific Coast harbors. The commanding position known as Fort Baker is now receiving batteries of modern guns and mortars, soon to make it what I call "the Gibraltar of the Pacific Coast".

At first the soldiers who manned these large guns camped in tents, but cold fog and winds soon made permanent housing a necessity. Thus grew Fort Baker starting in 1901.