Pensacola and Fort Pickens, Part 2

27 Feb 2013

We walked a lot today, taking a route from our site in Loop A west nearly to the end of Santa Rosa Island on the Florida National Scenic Trail. (The Florida National Scenic Trail runs from here clear to the Everglades.) At the west end of the island is Fort Pickens, one of some 40 forts built in the early 1800s mostly on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. A National Park Service ranger led an entertaining and informative tour of the fort. Built with slave labor, the fort was intended to defend against the aggression of other nations. Fort Pickens, however, was never the scene of battle except early in the Civil War, and it remained a stronghold of the Union in the Deep South.

In one of those quirky episodes of history, Fort Pickens also figured in the life of the famous warrior and medicine man Geronimo. Geronimo and other Apaches were being taken to St. Augustine for imprisonment after refusing to cooperate with the reservation system. When powers in Pensacola got word of this, they pulled strings and arranged to have the group instead imprisoned at Fort Pickens, where Geronimo became a money-making tourist attraction.

Touring the old Fort Pickens
Don't fire your cannon more often than once in fifteen minutes
or it may overheat and explode!

One of the casemates (cannon stations) at old Fort Pickens

In case you're ever tempted to
complain about your campsite....
this one in Loop E of Fort Pickens Campground  is drowning.
The stair from their camper heads directly into the water.
There was a big rain shortly before we arrived.
Everything is drier in Loop A where we are.

Note that their electric power cord goes down into the water!