In 1886 the U.S. Army exiled 400 Apaches from the Southwest to Florida and sent most of them to Fort Marion in St. Augustine. Several Pensacola citizens, however, petitioned the government to imprison Geronimo, a medicine man and warrior, and 15 . . . — — Map (db m86084) HM
Hidden beneath this vegetated mound of Battery 234 were soldiers who figured out solutions to a pressing problem: Where should artillery crews aim the guns to strike an attacking ship? It took some teamwork. Soldiers in the nearby end towers . . . — — Map (db m80060) HM
Battery Cooper's rifles popped up, disappeared, and reappeared like a jack-in-the-box. The battery, built in 1906, had two 6-inch rifles mounted on disappearing carriages. When the guns were fired, the recoil automatically lowered them behind the . . . — — Map (db m80062) HM
Gun crews performed a carefully choreographed ballet every time they loaded and fired an artillery piece. One slip-up in the teamwork could cause serious injuries or death. Crews practiced aiming at a target, opening the breech, loading and . . . — — Map (db m80067) HM
Hidden beneath this vegetation is Battery Langdon, Fort Pickens' most powerful gun emplacement. It's 12-inch guns could throw a projectile 17 miles out to sea. The first time Artilleryman M. Harry fired one of them his hat blew off, his pants . . . — — Map (db m80058) HM
In 1922 Hugo W. Papp looked on as the gun crew practiced firing one of Battery Payne's rapid-fire rifles. The recoil tore the gun from its mount and hurled it down the steps at Papp. In an instant he was dead. This was the only time that a life . . . — — Map (db m80066) HM
Fort Pickens' brick walls and cast-iron guns had become obsolete by the end of the Civil War. Harbor defenses now called for steel guns in low-lying concrete batteries. Trueman's 3-inch, rapid-fire guns, mounted in 1905, guarded the inner channel . . . — — Map (db m80063) HM
All alone in the glaring sun...scanning the horizon...looking for but hoping not to see an enemy ship or plane—guard duty was no picnic for the Coast Artillery during World War II. Soldiers stood guard around the clock in three- or . . . — — Map (db m80065) HM
Battery Worth's guns were deafening. The gun crews were told to "stay loose and keep your mouths open." Cotton was available, but most soldiers did not use it and developed "artilleryman's ear." Gun pits on the left and right housed eight 12-inch . . . — — Map (db m80057) HM
On the brink of war with Spain after the USS "Maine" battleship was sunk in Havana Harbor, Cuba, in February 1898, the U.S. Army installed a minefield in the Pensacola Harbor entrance. Leaving a 1000-foot opening, the Corps of Engineers placed two . . . — — Map (db m80095) HM
In this vicinity Captain Richard G. Bradford of Madison was killed on October 9, 1861, during the Battle of Santa Rosa Island. The battle was fought in an attempt to capture Fort Pickens which protected Pensacola Harbor. Bradford was first . . . — — Map (db m149353) HM
These gravestones are from the Chasefield Plantation Cemetery, originally located on land that is now part of Pensacola Naval Air Station. They were moved to this location in 1957.
Chasefield Plantation was the home of William H. Chase, who . . . — — Map (db m80056) HM
Starting in the mid-1500s, the Pensacola area became a pawn in a European power struggle in the New World. Adventurers from Spain, France and Britain competed with each other to establish a foothold on the Gulf of Mexico. Spain established several . . . — — Map (db m80079) HM
Feel the grooves inside this rare cannon barrel. This Rodman cannon was cast in 1861 as a 10-inch smoothbore, which fired round cannonballs. To keep up with modern technology, the U.S. Army in 1884 inserted an 8-inch rifled sleeve into the old . . . — — Map (db m80080) HM
On the night of June 20, 1899, a fire broke out near a gunpowder magazine on the fort's northwest side. A bucket brigade fought the flames, but the blaze grew in intensity, forced the soldiers away from the cistern, and at 5:20 a.m. ignited 8,000 . . . — — Map (db m80081) HM
If you had been here on November 22 and 23, 1861, you would have been in the midst of a fierce Civil War battle. Union troops at Fort Pickens bombarded Confederates who, in January, had occupied Fort McRee straight ahead across the bay and Fort . . . — — Map (db m80083) HM
Fort Pickens was past its prime. New rifled artillery could penetrate its brick walls. The U.S. Army resuscitated the antiquated brick fort in 1898 with reinforced concrete Battery Pensacola. The fort within a fort had two 12-inch rifles on . . . — — Map (db m80097) HM
On September 16, 2004, Hurricane Ivan roared across the Gulf of Mexico with 130-mile-per-hour winds and struck Santa Rosa Island and the national seashore's Fort Pickens head-on. A 14-foot storm surge washed across the island, destroyed piers and . . . — — Map (db m80099) HM
A 15-inch Rodman like this gun one of the largest smoothbore cannon ever developed was installed here in 1868 but never fired in combat. Though gradually replaced by rifled, breech-loading artillery, 8-, 10- and 15-inch Rodmans remained the . . . — — Map (db m196853) HM
Fort Pickens played a critical role in an 1800s homeland-security program. Pickens was the largest of four forts the U.S. government built to protect Pensacola Bay and the Navy Yard. The fort succeeded, not against a foreign invasion, but against . . . — — Map (db m80098) HM
Isolation and boredom, snakes and biting flies—many of the soldiers stationed at Fort Pickens in the 1800s and 1900s felt they had been sent to the end of the Earth and forgotten. They spent hours on end in the sweltering sun standing watch, . . . — — Map (db m80122) HM
