Treasure at the Fort

We rolled into Fort Pickins campground on the Gulf Islands National Seashore Saturday afternoon, June 2nd. This is a barrier island across the bay from Pensacola, Florida. The sugar white sand is composed of quartz crystals from the southern Appalachian Mountains, eroded over millennia and transported by water.

Fort Pickins was constructed in the 1830s. It was intended to be used for national defense. As it turned out, the only real combat action it saw was during the Civil War, where it was the largest of several Union forts in the area.

Several batteries were added in and around the fort over the decades to modernize defenses until it was decommissioned in 1947. The photos below are of one of them.