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 Situated 70 miles off the coast of Key West
on one of the seven islands that make up the Dry Tortugas National
Park, it is one of the largest American coastal forts ever to be
built.
Thomas Jefferson commissioned the construction of several defensive
forts from New England to the Louisiana Territory. Among these was
Fort Jefferson, which Jefferson had intended to dominate the entrance
to the Gulf of Mexico
 Much is written about Fort Jefferson’s designer, Joseph Gilbert
Totten, an engineer who employed innovative techniques for the construction
of this and other historical forts. Totten had walls built at West
Point at which cannons were fired to determine if they could withstand
such force. The results of this bold experiment led to his final
design that became the basis for the construction of Fort Jefferson.
Bulging brick
walls at Fort Jefferson.
If conditions were different, the fort might otherwise have been
constructed with a lime putty mortar. However, there was no place
to dig a hole and no firewood to burn lime. There was also no way
to have it shipped, because the hot mortar would have burnt the wood
barrels. Therefore, they needed come up with a better way to build
more forts faster, lest the British invade or return to burn down
Washington again. Rising to the challenge, Totten incorporated the
use of natural cement for a faster and more cost-effective construction
of the fort. Construction of the fort began in 1846 and continued
for 30 years. However, with the invention of the rifled cannon, the
military value of the fort decreased... and it was never completed.
Despite this Fort Jefferson proved to play an interesting role in American
history. During the Civil War the fort was used as a military prison. Union forces seized Fort Jefferson in January 1861. In 1865 the fort
served as a holding cell for Samuel Mudd, the doctor who treated
John Wilkes Booth and was later convicted of complicity in the assassination
of President Abraham Lincoln. Fort Jefferson was declared a national
monument in 1935.
Challenging Work Conditions
Fort Jefferson cannon
iron block removal.Located far and away from the rest of civilization, it takes eight
hours to reach Fort Jefferson by boat. No water, no electricity and
no cellular phone service exist on the island. Polar Power Inc. has
designed a complete, self-sustained, base camp to house our six-man
construction crew while we restore 20 of the 144 brick cannon embrasures
that are badly in need of restoration. The base camp is bio diesel
(soy oil) and solar-powered for the protection of the park’s
environment. In the event of a threat of a hurricane, everything
must be disassembled. As such, we are in the process of reassembling
the base camp after Hurricane Dennis.
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