Fort Pickens

This Fort is one of the nicest we have seen out of the many that we have been to.  It was a cool day, but a nice one. John and Linda took us to visit this Fort. This was one of four forts built to defend Pensacola Bay and its Navy yard. They started to build the fort in 1829, completed it in 1834, and it was used until 1947. Over 21.5 million bricks were used. They were made locally and barged to the island. The union remained in control of the fort all through the Civil War. It was constructed mainly by African American slave labor. The cannon below is a 12 inch smooth bore, the other cannon shown is a 15 inch smooth bore. The cannons had a range of about one mile, the larger cannons used projectiles weighing 1,070 pounds and were propelled by 275 pounds of smokeless powder, and had a range of up to 8 miles. On June 20, 1899 Bastion D was destroyed because of a fire.The magazine contained 8,000 lbs of powder. In the explosion it showered debris 1.5 miles away. You can see in one picture where the whole wall was destroyed. And you can see just how thick the walls are.