Posts tagged "Civil War"

Fort Zachary Taylor

(305) 292-6713 - www.fortzacharytaylor.com

I’ve always been a big fan of old war forts.

I’ve visited Fort Pulaski in Savannah, the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, and now this one here in Key West. Out of the four I’ve visited, Fort Zach is probably the least interesting, (Ft Jefferson wins hands down!), but it’s the closest to me (biking distance), so it earns points in my book! Just because it’s not the most interesting though doesn’t mean it’s not still a blast to visit.

I will give fort Zach props in one other area as well, it’s the least busy of all the other forts.. with Castillo de San Marcos probably being the most visited I’ve seen. You can wander around fort Zach with relative freedom, and with little disturbance from groups of school children and gaggles of sweaty tourists all bustling for the best photos.

Fort Zach is a 3-sided fort with barracks buildings blocking off the back side of the parade grounds at the center. Two of the sides are pretty much locked up and unavailable for sightseeing due in part i’m sure to the state of disrepair the fort has fallen into. it’s just not safe to go in those wings.  Strangely enough, the one wing of the fort you can wander in freely appears to be the oldest, and constructed of all original brick work. I guess they knew what they were doing back in 1845! The other two wings were rebuilt at some point with reinforced concrete, and we all know what salt water does to iron rebar in concrete.. I don’t know how they will keep it form disintegrating completely at some point in the future.

A brief history

Construction began in 1845, and was completed in 1860. The fort was named after president Zachary Taylor in 1850 after his sudden death in office.

Originally the fort was 3 stories tall, but in 1889 the top two levels were demolished to make way for more modern weapons. Too bad! It would have been much more impressive if it were still intact. I can’t find a photo from way back then, but I was able to dig up a painting. (to the left).

In the early days of the Civil war in 1861 the fort was seized by Union forces under the command of Captain John Milton Brannan, preventing it from falling into Confederate hands. During this point the fort was primarily used to threaten blockade runners. The fort saw heavy use again in the late 1890′s during the Spanish-American war.

In 1948 the Army, having no more need of it,  turned the fort over to the U.S. Navy. In 1968 a team of volunteers began excavating the abandoned areas of the fort, finding the largest collection of Civil War Cannons in the nation. When the top two stories were demolished and two of the wings filled in, they had used the old cannons as filler! Fort Taylor was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1973.

Originally the fort sat out in the ocean and was accessed by a 1000′ causeway, but due to the filling in of the areas around it to build the State Park, the fort is now landlocked. The mote was added in 1989 to give visitors a better sense of what it looked like originally.

When can I move in?

I wandered around in here for about an hour and a half. It’s not nearly as large as some of the other forts I’ve visited, and like I said, there’s not much to see in the two closed off wings, but the remaining red-brick construction barrel-vault wing is a very cool thing indeed. You can really get a sense of creeping claustrophobia in some of those dark small rooms. The lack of other visitors just makes it all the more creepy… I absolutely loved it.

You can really get a sense of what it must have been like huddled up inside here while cannons boomed and gunfire raged. The latrine is an interesting place to visit in the far back of the right wing. It was so dark I couldn’t get a good photo, but back in the day I guess the latrines were flushed by the ocean waves.. interesting!

They’re currently rebuilding the roof and renovating the old barracks on the back side of the parade grounds, so I wasn’t able to get in there to take photos, but I was heartened to see some renovation efforts. Maybe they won’t let this old treasure fall apart after all. I’ll definitely have to go back when it’s done and get some pix.

Up top

The view from the top is very nice, you can look out to the shipping channel that runs into Key West bight. The cruise ships go right by here too, and if you’re lucky one will rumble past when you’re up top.. I’m still amazed at how huge those things are!.. it’s quite a sight.

You can see where all the cannons were attached and check out some of the half-excavated old civil War cannons buried in the concrete foundations of the newer part of the fort. You also have a pretty cool view of backside of Fort Zach Beach and the Submarine port at the Truman Annex.

For the week preceeding Halloween during Fantasy Fest, the fort becomes a haunted house with a Civil War and Haunted Key West theme. Definitely something worth checking out. Check out the Haunting of Fort Zachary Taylor website.