Fort Monroe Seawall History

Fort Monroe Seawall History. Seawall Construction Details. , The first concrete seawall, constructed at Fort Monroe between March and August of 1895, was designed to provide better protection against coastal flooding and erosion. This concrete wall extended 664 feet from the eastern edge of where the second Hygeia Hotel once stood to the western end of the present-day Engineering Wharf. A granite block abutment to the Engineering Wharf, placed between 1858 and 1888, pre-dates the 1895 seawall structure., The 1895 seawall was a single poured-concrete gravity structure of monolithic crushed stone and sand aggregate. The wall had no pilings or internal reinforcements. Lieutenant D. DuB. Gaillard designed the wall for the U.S. Army. Design plans proposed a concrete wall with footings sunk 8 feet below the beach and existing riprap in places. The superstructure of the wall was 8 feet high and had a width of 4 feet at the bottom and 2 feet at the top of the structure., Construction materials needed for the wall included 893 cubic yards of concrete, 710.5 barrels of Portland cement, 41.5 barrels of sand for bonding, 359 cubic yards of sand, 19.5 cubic yards of gravel, 315 cubic yards of fine broken stone, 105.23 cubic yards of riprap built into the wall. Another 2,595 cubic yards of sand was required to fill in areas behind the seawall., In the first decade of the 20th century, the original concrete seawall expanded east from the Engineering Wharf to Jetty #1. By the latter half of the 20th century, the seawall expanded west to the southern edge of the present-day Navy Wharf. A 10 foot section of the 1895 wall is preserved under the colored concrete sidewalk located near where you are standing. The remaining portions of the original wall have been replaced in efforts to modernize and improve coastal protection.