Fort Jefferson, Florida
| Fort Jefferson, Florida | |
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| Unincorporated community | |
Fort Jefferson is no longer in use as a military facility and is currently part of the Dry Tortugas National Park.
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| Coordinates: 24°37′41″N 82°52′23″W / 24.628°N 82.873°W | |
| Country |
 United States
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| State |
 Florida
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| County | Monroe |
| Time zone | Eastern (EST) (UTC-5) |
| • Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC-4) |
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Fort Jefferson National Monument
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| Location | 68 mi. W of Key West, in Gulf of Mexico, Dry Tortugas Islands, Florida |
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| Area | 47.125 acres (19.071 ha) |
| Built | 1847 |
| NRHP Reference # | 70000069 |
| Added to NRHP | November 10, 1970 |
Fort Jefferson is a massive but unfinished coastal fortress. It is the largest brick masonry structure in the Americas, and is composed of over 16 million bricks. Among United States forts, only Fort Monroe in Virginia and Fort Adams in Rhode Island are larger. The fort is located on Garden Key in the lower Florida Keys within the Dry Tortugas National Park, about 70 miles (110 km) west of the island of Key West. The Dry Tortugas are part of Monroe County, Florida, United States.
In late December 1824 and early January 1825, about five years after Spain sold Florida to the United States for $5 million, U.S. Navy Commodore David Porter inspected the Dry Tortugas islands. He was on the lookout for a site for a naval station that would help suppress piracy in the Caribbean. Unimpressed with what he saw, he notified the Secretary of the Navy that the Dry Tortugas were unfit for any kind of naval establishment. He reported that they consist of small sand islands a little above the surface of the ocean, have no fresh water, scarcely enough land to place a fortification, and in any case are probably not solid enough to bear one.
While Commodore Porter thought the Dry Tortugas were unfit for a naval station, others in the U.S. government thought the islands were a good location for a lighthouse to guide ships around the area's reefs and small islands. A small island called Bush Key, later called Garden Key, was selected as the site for the lighthouse, which became known as Garden Key Light. Construction began in 1825 and was completed in 1826. The 65-foot lighthouse was constructed of brick with a whitewashed exterior. A small white cottage for the lighthouse keeper was constructed beside the lighthouse.
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Wikipedia