Castillo de San Marcos
The Castillo de San Marcos National Monument is the only 17th century military construction and is the oldest masonry fortress in the United States. Castillo de San Marcos is the culmination of hundreds of years of defense engineering and is the best example of a bastion system. Being the oldest masonry fort in the United States isn’t the only thing it has going for it, the material used to build it is really unique.
Castillo de San Marcos is one of two fortifications built out of coquina (a rare form of limestone). The other fort is Fort Matanzas, which is also a National Monument just 14 miles south. Fort Matanzas is much smaller and was used to protect the back entrance to Saint Augustine, FL.
Coquina seemed to be a bad choice to build a fort of, but the Spanish really didn’t have much to choose from. Coquina contains a lot of small pockets of air, which makes it very porous and very light, but it seemed to have an unexpected benefit. When canon balls were fired at the fort, the canon balls simply stuck into the walls and were stuck there. When a canon ball was shot at a more solid structure made of brick or granite, it would shatter causing a lot of damage.
I had the pleasure of visiting fort Castillo recently during the Fourth of July celebration and throughout the rest of the week. The fort in my opinion is an architectural gem. It has a beauty all to its own. Standing outside the walls you get a real sense of the scale of this fortification. The Spanish architectural influence is abundant throughout the fort.
The fourth of July celebration here is high on my list that I have been to and trust me I have been to some good ones. It ranks in at number two, number one for me so far is the Fourth of July celebration at Colonial Williamsburg, but that’s another story. The fireworks over the fort lasted between 20 to 25 minutes; they were large and very well choreographed. Thousands of people filled the area for this event and when it was over there was a large amount of people cheering and clapping.
While visiting and exploring the fort, my wife decided she wanted to explore another aspect of it. We had heard the rumors of how haunted the fort was and had decided to do a ghost tour. We ended up going with Ripley’s Believe It or Not’s Ghost Train, which we felt was worth every penny. The guide was a great storyteller and the story he told us of an apparition that appears at the fort was pretty good as well.
Now, I do not really know how true this story is, but this is what the gentlemen who guided our tour shared with us. He said there was an apparition of a headless man that can be seen wondering the top of the fort at any point of the day. The headless figure is supposed to be that of a man that was killed by a canon ball. The British were getting ready to attack the Spanish and the young Spaniard decided to propose to his beloved. He took is beloved to the top of the fort were he proposed to her, after she said yes, he jumped up with the ring in hand and screamed she said yes! Right after, while holding the ring in the air, he was hit by a canon ball fired from the British ship. The tour was great; the story was interesting, especially how he presented it.
If you are a history buff or a National Park junky, you will love this place. The cost for admittance is $10 for adults (for the week) and free for kids with an accompanied adult. So there’s a little history and a little bit of my visit. All photographs posted here were taking during this trip.
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