in 1794. In 1769 Spain occupied the San Francisco area and by 1776 had established the area's first European settlement, with a
mission and a
presidio. To protect against encroachment by the British and Russians, Spain selected
Punta del Cantil Blanco, a promontory with a high white cliff (
cantil blanco) located at the narrowest part of the bay's entrance, to construct a fortification. The
Castillo de San Joaquín was constructed in 1794, subordinate to the nearby Presidio de San Francisco. It was an
adobe structure housing nine to thirteen cannons.
Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, gaining control of the region and the fort, but in 1835 the
Mexican army moved to
Sonoma leaving the castillo's adobe walls to crumble in the wind and rain. On July 1, 1846, after the
Mexican–American War broke out between Mexico and the United States, U.S. forces, including Captain
John Charles Fremont,
Kit Carson and a band of 10 followers, captured and occupied the empty castillo and
spiked (disabled) the cannons. Sometime during the Spanish and Mexican eras, the
Punta del Cantil Blanco came to be known as the "Punta del Castillo" ("Castle Point"), which was carried over into the era of U.S. sovereignty, in rough translation, as "Fort Point".
U.S. era Following the United States' victory in 1848,
California was annexed by the U.S. and became a state in 1850. The
gold rush of 1849 had caused rapid settlement of the area, which was recognized as commercially and strategically valuable to the United States. Military officials soon recommended a series of fortifications to secure San Francisco Bay. Coastal defenses were built at
Alcatraz Island,
Fort Mason, and Fort Point. The U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers began work on Fort Point in 1853. Plans specified that the lowest tier of artillery be as close as possible to water level so cannonballs could ricochet across the water's surface to hit enemy ships at the water-line. Workers blasted the cliff down to above sea level. The structure featured seven-foot-thick walls and multi-tiered casemated construction typical of
Third System forts. It was sited to defend the maximum amount of harbor area. While there were more than 30 such forts on the East Coast, Fort Point was the only one on the West Coast. In 1854 Inspector General
Joseph K. Mansfield declared "this point as the key to the whole Pacific Coast...and it should receive untiring exertions". A crew of 200, many unemployed miners, labored for eight years on the fort. In 1861, with war looming, the army mounted the fort's first cannon. Colonel
Albert Sidney Johnston, commander of the Department of the Pacific, prepared Bay Area defenses and ordered in the first troops to the fort. Kentucky-born Johnston then resigned his commission to join the
Confederate Army; he was killed at the
Battle of Shiloh in 1862.
Fort Point and the Civil War Throughout the Civil War, artillerymen at Fort Point stood guard for an enemy that never came. The
Confederate raider
CSS Shenandoah planned to attack San Francisco, but on the way to the harbor the captain learned that the war was over; it was August 1865, months after
General Lee surrendered. Severe damage to similar forts on the Atlantic Coast during the war –
Fort Sumter in
South Carolina and
Fort Pulaski in
Georgia – challenged the effectiveness of masonry walls against rifled artillery. Troops soon moved out of Fort Point, and it was never again continuously occupied by the army. The fort was nonetheless important enough to receive protection from the elements. In 1869 a granite seawall was completed. The following year, some of the fort's cannon were moved to Battery East on the bluffs nearby, where they were more protected. In 1882 Fort Point was officially named Fort
Winfield Scott after the hero of the war against Mexico. in 1886, it reverted back to its original Fort Point name with the establishment of a new fort within the Presidio of San Francisco that was then named Fort Winfield Scott.
Into a new century In 1892, the army began constructing the new
Endicott System concrete fortifications armed with steel, breech-loading rifled guns. Within eight years, all 103 of the smooth-bore cannons at Fort Point had been dismounted and sold for scrap. The fort, moderately damaged in the
1906 earthquake, where the fort was used as a temporary refugee camp by the U.S. Army, was used over the next four decades for
barracks, training, and storage, however, in 1913, part of the interior wall was removed by the army in their short-lived attempt to make the fort the army detention barracks using soldier and prisoner labor. The detention barracks were later built on Alcatraz Island and was used until becoming a federal prison. Soldiers from the
6th U.S. Coast Artillery were stationed there during
World War II to guard minefields and the anti-submarine net that spanned the Golden Gate. New quarters and administrative buildings were constructed on the higher ground, behind the new Endicott batteries, moving Fort Scott to this location. File:Fort Point 1934.jpg|Fort Point in 1934, with the Golden Gate Bridge under construction File:Fort Point under bridge.jpg|View from under bridge File:A general view of the northwest wall, in relation to the Fort Point arch of the golden gate bridge. View to southwest. - Fort Point, U.S. Highway 101, San Francisco, San HABS CAL,38-SANFRA,4-54.tif|A general view of the northwest wall, in relation to the Fort Point arch of the Golden Gate Bridge File:A view toward the southwest corner of the interior, showing the octagonal wooden structure atop the southwest circular staircase. - Fort Point, U.S. Highway 101, San Francisco, HABS CAL,38-SANFRA,4-60.tif|A view toward the southwest corner of the interior, showing the octagonal wooden structure atop the southwest circular staircase
Preserving Fort Point In 1926 the
American Institute of Architects proposed preserving the fort for its outstanding military architecture. Funds were unavailable, and the ideas languished. Plans for the
Golden Gate Bridge in the 1930s called for the fort's removal, but Chief Engineer
Joseph Strauss redesigned the bridge to save "While the old fort has no military value now," Strauss said, "it remains nevertheless a fine example of the mason's art.... It should be preserved and restored as a national monument." The fort is situated directly below the southern approach to the bridge, underneath an arch that supports the roadway. Preservation efforts were revived after
World War II. On October 16, 1970,
President Richard Nixon signed a bill creating Fort Point National File:Fortpointcanons02-012006.JPG|Middle level of Fort Point File:Fortpoint02-01-2006.JPG|Cannons on display at Fort Point File:Fort Point, September 2019-8795.jpg|Interior of Fort Point File:The interior of Fort Point.jpg|The courtyard of the fort
Landmark status Fort Point is designated as
California Historical Landmark #82, officially listed under the site's original name, Castillo De San Joaquín.
Recreation The rocky point north of the fort produces waves, in the winter months, that are popular with surfers. ==Media use==