The Shore at Hampton, Virginia

Sunlight on Chesapeake Bay, from Fort Monroe

Fort Monroe was built to protect the Chesapeake Bay at Hampton, Virginia. The land and water side is beautiful at this historic site.    The need for a fort overlooking the Chesapeake Bay was justified after the War of 1812.   The construction of the seven sided stone fort was authorized in 1814.  This area is rich with history. The work began in 1819.  The stone fort ended up being the nation’s largest stone fort.  The fort was built with a moat surrounding the structure.  The stone fort was completed in 1834 but the completion of the stone fort was not the end of construction at Fort Monroe.  Several batteries were built alongside the stone fort as coastal artillery changed.  Companion fortresses at Fort Wool and at Virginia’s Eastern Shore were made so the guns could cover the sea far out from the shoreline.  During the Endicott period in military weapon development seven batteries of disappearing guns were built to defend the area at Fort Monroe. These batteries were installed primarily in the period of 1897 to 1901.  The disappearing gun was fitted with a giant hinge assembly that allowed the gun to rise above the wall of the battery and then sink down behind the wall after the gun was fired.  This was the reason the gun was named the disappearing gun.

Fort Monroe continued to have coastal artillery until 1945.  The fort at Corregidor had similar coastal artillery that was used in the Pacific theater of World War II.  At the time of 1945 it was decided that coastal artillery was outmoded.  The Army removed the batteries from Fort Monroe.

Though the batteries are gone the appeal of the Fort remains.  Great crowds want to go there.  Preservation and care are needed to keep it as a place that impresses. 

"The great wilds of our country once held to be boundless and inexhaustible are being rapidly invaded and overrun in every direction, and everything destructible in them is being destroyed. How far destruction may go is not easy to guess. Every landscape low and high seems doomed to be trampled and harried."

John Muir

I think of the destroying of our natural places.  It is on my mind.  Our plans will consider how to care for our natural places or we will lose them.