Workers blasted the 90-foot (27 m) cliff down to 15 feet (4.6 m) above sea level. 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. Army Corps of Engineers began work on Fort Point in 1853. Coastal defenses were built at Alcatraz Island, Fort Mason, and Fort Point. Military officials soon recommended a series of fortifications to secure San Francisco Bay. The gold rush of 1849 had caused rapid settlement of the area, which was recognized as commercially and strategically valuable to the United States. sovereignty, in rough translation, as "Fort Point".įollowing the United States' victory in 1848, California was annexed by the U.S. 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. 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. On July 1, 1846, after the Mexican–American War broke out between Mexico and the United States, U.S. 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. It was an adobe structure housing nine to thirteen cannons. The Castillo de San Joaquin was constructed in 1794, subordinate to the nearby Presidio de San Francisco. 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. 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.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |