Fort Point

The Orders from Washington

In February 1853, the Secretary of War directed the Army Corps of Engineers to begin a third-tier masonry fortification at the entrance to San Francisco Bay. The site had been surveyed for years, and the choice was unromantic: this was the narrowest crossing of the Golden Gate, the only deep-water channel a hostile fleet would have to pass. Earlier coastal batteries at the same spot had been improvised and temporary. Now Washington wanted permanence. The orders specified a brick casemate structure capable of mounting heavy guns in multiple tiers, with seaward-facing embrasures and a fortified land side in case an enemy actually landed. The plan called for more than a hundred cannon positions. The site itself was a windswept point of sand and scrub on the Presidio's southern flank, with no road, no fresh water, and no rail. Everything the fort would be made of had to arrive by sea. Count the brick courses on the seaward wall outside — each one a barge unloaded by hand.