Mount Vernon Arsenal

Mount Vernon Arsenal. . The cannon in front of you, buried muzzle-down during an 1873 land survey to mark a corner of the Mount Vernon Military Reservation, is just one of many reminders that Mount Vernon hosted important U.S. Army posts throughout the 19th century. , The first of these posts, Fort Stoddert (Point 6 on the Mount Vernon History Trail), was established in 1799 on the Mobile River to control and tax river traffic to Spanish colonial Mobile. Every summer malaria and yellow fever took a toll on the garrison of that low-lying fort, so a nearby hilltop at Mount Vernon Springs was cleared in 1811 for a seasonal camp. For the next few years healthy Mount Vernon Cantonment and unhealthy Fort Stoddert together served as military headquarters for this part of Mississippi Territory. In 1815, at the conclusion of the Creek War and the War of 18 12, both posts were abandoned. However, years after his campaigns in the region during the Creek War, Andrew Jackson recalled the military advantages of the cantonment site. Once he became President of the United States, he directed the U.S. Army to construct an arsenal at the springs. , From 1830 to 1870 Mount Vernon Arsenal served as a weapons depot and factory for production of small arms munitions, between 1861 and 1865 under control of the Confederate Army. In 1873 the Army re-tasked the post and renamed it Mount Vernon Barracks, which had a permanent garrison of infantry, artillery, and cavalry. Between 1887 and 1894, the Army housed hundreds of Chiricahua Apache Indian prisoners on the Mount Vernon Military Reservation, outside the walls of the old arsenal. The most famous of the Apaches interned at Mount Vernon Barracks was Geronimo. During this same period, Dr. Walter Reed served as post surgeon before gaining fame for leading a commission that determined the role of mosquitoes in transmitting yellow fever. , Today nine standing structures and a partially encircling brick wall date from the period of the arsenal and barracks; they comprise the most complete and best-preserved early 19th-century U.S. Army arsenal complex in the country. Historical architects with the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) documented the arsenal buildings in 1935, and in 1988 the site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. , Unfortunately the arsenal site is not presently accessible to the public. In 1895 the U.S. War Department decommissioned the post and gave Mount Vernon Barracks to the State of Alabama. The state established Mount Vernon Hospital there in 1902 for the treatment of mentally ill African-American residents. Renamed Searcy Hospital in 1919, the facility was desegregated in 1969. Searcy Hospital remains one of the most important mental health facilities in Alabama, and public access is strictly controlled to insure the welfare and privacy of patients. No admittance is permitted for touring the historic site at this time. , Captions: , [Top left] Arsenal Administration Building (Courtesy of the Historic American Building Survey) , [Bottom left] Apaches at their village at Mount Vernon Barracks (Courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama) , [Top middle] Apaches at Mount Vernon Barracks; left to right: Chihuahua, Nachez, Loco, Nano and Geronimo (Courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama) , [Bottom middle] Arsenal Officers' Quarters (Courtesy of the Historic American Buildings Survey) , [Top right] Arsenal South Gate (Courtesy of the Historic American Building Survey)