Fort Jefferson (Dry Tortugas) — star fort
U.S. National Park Service · Public domain

Fort Jefferson (Dry Tortugas)

Fort Jefferson

  • 2 min read
  • 24.628° N 82.873° W

Interesting facts

  • In 1825 the naval commodore David Porter reported that the Dry Tortugas were useless for any naval base: tiny sand islands with no fresh water.
  • Robert E. Lee, then an army captain, wrote in 1845 urging that the Dry Tortugas be reserved for military use.
  • Much of the fort was built by enslaved men hired out by their owners in Key West, working alongside Irish immigrant labourers until 1863.
  • Sand-filled columns inside the walls were meant to filter rainwater into cisterns, but salt leached from the sand and much of the water proved undrinkable.
  • During the Civil War two steam condensers distilled around 7,000 gallons of seawater a day to keep the garrison supplied.
  • Lincoln allowed deserters to be sent here instead of being executed, and by late 1864 the fort held 882 prisoners guarded by 583 soldiers.
  • After a failed escape attempt Samuel Mudd was confined in a cell whose doorway bore a line from Dante's Inferno telling all who enter to abandon hope.
  • The USS Maine took on coal at Garden Key in 1898 shortly before its fateful voyage to Havana.
  • Juan Ponce de León named the islands Tortugas after catching 160 sea turtles there in 1513; Dry was added because they have no surface fresh water.
  • Neighbouring Bush Key was once called Hog Island, because hogs were raised there to provide fresh meat for the fort's prisoners.

Why it is worth it

Nearly seventy miles of open sea west of Key West, on a scrap of coral sand called Garden Key, stands the largest brick masonry structure in the Americas. Fort Jefferson is a huge hexagon of red brick, more than sixteen million bricks in all, with two walls about 325 feet long and four of about 477 feet, surrounded by a moat and a seawall so that the whole fort seems to float on the turquoise shallows of the Dry Tortugas. The United States began building it in 1846 to command the shipping lanes of the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Straits. It was designed for some 450 heavy guns on two tiers of casemates and the roof; about 243 were eventually mounted, and none was ever fired in battle.

The rhythm of the building is its great beauty. Row after row of arched casemates run around the courtyard, each arch framing a slice of sea or sky. Work went on for decades and the fort was never truly finished. During and after the Civil War it served as a military prison; its best-known inmate was Dr Samuel Mudd, who arrived in 1865 after his conviction in connection with Lincoln's assassination, who tended the garrison through a yellow fever epidemic in 1867 and was later pardoned. A small metal lighthouse, which replaced an earlier brick tower in 1876, still rises from one of the walls.

In 1935 the fort was declared a national monument, and in 1992 the surrounding waters and islets became Dry Tortugas National Park. Much of the park is sea, famous for its coral reefs and marine life and scattered with old shipwrecks, and neighbouring Bush Key is a protected nesting ground for brown noddies. The combination is hard to match anywhere: a monumental nineteenth-century fortress, almost untouched by later building, set in clear tropical water far from any road.

Getting there

Garden Key lies about 68 miles (some 110 km) west of Key West, which is the gateway; Key West International Airport (EYW) is the nearest airport. The fort can only be reached by sea or air: a daily ferry and chartered seaplanes run from Key West, and private boats can also make the crossing. Primitive camping is allowed on the island.

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From the encyclopaedia

Fort Jefferson is a former U.S. military coastal fortress in the Dry Tortugas National Park of Florida. It is the largest brick masonry structure in the Americas, covering 16 acres (6.5 ha) and constructed of over 16 million bricks. Among United States forts, only Fort Monroe in Virginia and Fort Adams in Rhode Island are larger. The fort is located on Garden Key in the lower Florida Keys within the Dry Tortugas, 68 miles (109 km) west of the island of Key West. The Dry Tortugas are part of Monroe County in Florida.

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