Fort Jefferson - Dry Tortugas National Park

Dry Tortugas National Park consists of several keys, or islands, located about 70 miles west of Key West.  While Key West claims itself as the Southernmost Point of the United States, the Dry Tortugas are more properly the gateway between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.

Among the Dry Tortugas are Loggerhead Key, on which sits a lighthouse to warn ships using the treacherous channel from the Gulf to the Atlantic; and a group of three keys, Garden Key (on which sits historic Fort Jefferson), Bush Key (a protected nesting ground for terns and other nesting migrating birds), and Long Key, a nesting ground for Magnificent Frigatebirds.  Due to accretion of sandbars between them, Garden Key, Bush Key and Long Key have, for all practical purposes, become one island.

Construction of Fort Jefferson commenced in 1846, but the island had military and maritime significance from before 1821, when the United States completed its purchase of the Dry Tortugas and the rest of Florida from Spain.  Three miles from Garden Key lay the only deepwater anchorage between the Atlantic Seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico large enough for increasingly large military warships - and any fort built on the island would help control and secure shipping lanes between the Gulf and the Atlantic.

Fort Jefferson was never completed.  It was one of a series of "Third System" forts built along the Atlantic Coast before the Civil War to protect the United States from naval attack.  Due to design flaws and limitations, it ultimately only held a fraction of the cannon and other guns it was planned to house.  During and after the Civil War, the Fort housed prisoners.  It was a place of disease and death.  Yellow Fever broke out after the Civil War.  The famous Dr. Samuel Mudd, who had been convicted of helping John Wilkes Booth after the latter's assassination of President Lincoln, was housed there.  He was ultimately granted a pardon for his brave assistance in tending to prisoners and soldiers who were ill with Yellow Fever.

Construction ceased in 1889 and the fort was never completed.  It ceased being used for military purposes in 1912.  The area was first designated as a National Monument by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, then redesignated a national park in 1992.

An important natural significance of the Dry Tortugas is that they include and protect one of the largest and least disturbed of the coral reefs in the Florida Keys.   It also boasts a colorful history of piracy and shipwrecks.  A less official, but equally notable, significance of the Dry Tortugas is the frequent landing of Cuban immigrants there - particularly on Loggerhead Key where the lighthouse is located.  Taking advantage of the special U.S. immigration rule for Cuban refugees, people arriving by boat need only get "one dry foot" on any land in the Dry Tortugas, and they would be entitled to stay legally in the U.S.  One regular responsibility of National Park staff there is to shelter and care for Cuban boat immigrants before moving them on to Miami for more formal immigration processing.

Here is a map of Garden Key today:

Our campground was located as shown on the map, in the ONLY shady grove of trees on the island.  Here is a photo of the campground, on the left, separated from the Fort on the right by the moat you see in the foreground and center of this photo.

There are a limited number of campsites, and campsite selection is first-come-first-served, so as our boat docked at Fort Jefferson on Monday, we decided we should move quickly to secure a decent campsite.  While Kathy waited for our gear to be unloaded, David strolled quickly over to the campground and laid claim to the first empty campsite he found - which happened to be the ONLY fully-shaded site in the campground.  We were very glad we had done this, because it was hot and sunny our entire stay, and our shady site offered some very pleasant relief during midday.

It's not possible to describe all of the intricate detail of the Fort in one blog entry, so we'll stick to some highlights.  The Fort is built of concrete and brick, with metal framing.  More than 16 million bricks were used in its construction.  It has an hexagonal shape with pointed bastions at each apex of the hexagon.  The wall consists of an outer wall generally 8 feet thick, and an inner wall, with flooring stretching perhaps 20 feet between the two.  The inner wall is of open architecture, having many open arches, as shown in the photo below.  The entire wall has two stories as well as a top on which are mounted cannon and which can be walked.  The entire area within the walls now is a grassy garden, with what appear to be numerous live oak trees, and even some cactus.

Originally, many structures occupied parts of the interior, such as bunkhouses, dining halls, armories and the like.  Here is a photo of the interior, with the hot shot furnace in the foreground.  The hot shot furnace was used to heat cannonballs red-hot, whereupon they were carried (QUICKLY) to a cannon, to be hurled at enemy ships, with the goal that the red-hot cannonballs would set fire to the wooden ships.

Today, these structures mostly stand empty and unused.  Several houses, however, had been officer housing and still today operate as residences for park rangers.  Sections on the second floor of the Fort have been improved for residences for rangers and park staff.  A generator provides electricity for the entire complex, so there is air conditioning.  The area inside the fort includes a septic field, as well as a concrete freshwater cistern to provide the drinking water needs of park staff.

On one of the bastions, an iron lighthouse has been constructed and still functions as a harbor light for the Fort.

Access to the second story of the Fort and the top of the wall is by stone and concrete steps in the interior of each of the six bastions.  While some of the staircases are lit, others are not and can be treacherous to climb or descend, even in midday.  Here's Kathy demonstrating the proper method of using the staircases:

Around the Fort is a saltwater moat, approximately 70 feet wide, in turn contained by a concrete and brick moat wall.  Today, visitors can walk completely around the Fort on the flat moat wall, and that is a fascinating walk for many reason.  First, it provides a 360 degree view of Garden Key and the waters around the key, including the lighthouse at Loggerhead Key, 3 miles away, which can be seen as a ghostly apparition on the western horizon:

In addition, however, because the outside of the moat has begun to anchor coral, sponges, seaweed and other reef plants, a wide variety of tropical fish treat the moat and moat wall as a sheltering environment, and it is possible to view the fish up close, simply by looking into the water beside the moat wall.  Indeed, due to the presence of the fish, a wide variety of bird life also frequents the area around the moat.  This presents a really unique opportunity to view wildlife in its natural environment.