Find the San Francisco fort at the end of Marine Drive, beneath the Golden Gate Bridge.

How to get a closer look: Fort Point hours vary by season (and pandemic precautions), but the outdoor areas should be open from 10 a.m. The invaders never came to Fort Point, though a Confederate ship was just a few days away from the Golden Gate in the summer of 1865, when its captain learned that the Confederacy had fallen. (Photo: National Park Service)įort Point is one of many fortifications built around San Francisco Bay over two centuries to stop an attack - from the British, the Russians, the Japanese, the Soviets or fellow Americans. The fort, which has walls 7 feet thick, now is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Fort Point National Historic Site, where a masonry fort built in 1853 stands at the south end of the Golden Gate, was used to protect San Francisco Bay during the Civil War. The original design even called for a moat, and Fort Point replaced the Castillo de San Joaquin, an adobe gun battery built on the bluff by the Spanish in 1794. Banquo’s ghost roamed its halls in 2013, when a theater company used it as a stand-in for Macbeth’s castle.īuilt with seven-foot-thick brick walls to withstand a lengthy siege, the four-tier, brick-and-mortar fort fits the Old World definition of castle. The fort is so atmospheric, Alfred Hitchcock used it for a scene in “Vertigo,” when his haunted heroine jumps into the bay to escape her demons. The figure turned out to be a parent chaperone, but our brief terror is a reminder of the lore and mysteries attached to this national historic site. A dark figure stood on the west bastion, looking out over the strait to the sounds of a fog horn, waves lapping against the rocks and the thunk-thunk of cars crossing the bridge above.

guard duties at the fort, built in 1861 at the southern end of the Golden Gate to protect against Confederate invasion. While playing Union soldiers on a memorable fifth-grade overnight field trip, a classmate and I had pulled midnight to 2 a.m.

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