Fort Point - The Fort Under the Bridge

Fort Point - The Fort Under the Bridge

Photo: ThomasLendt, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)

A stop on San Francisco, District by District, a free self-guided tour.

Tucked under the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge, Fort Point is a brick fortress the Army built from 1853 to 1861 to guard the Golden Gate during the Gold Rush boom. It replaced an earlier Spanish adobe battery, the Castillo de San Joaquin, which stood on the same point. The first cannons were mounted just as the Civil War began, but the fort never fired a shot in battle.

When engineers planned the Golden Gate Bridge in the early 1930s, the fort was in the way. Chief engineer Joseph Strauss redesigned the approach and added a steel arch so the bridge could pass over it, arguing it should be saved as a monument. It became a national historic site in 1970.

Check the park's website for current days and hours. Even when the fort is closed, you can walk to the seawall outside for a dramatic view straight up at the bridge.

More on Wikipedia: Fort Point National Historic Site · Golden Gate Bridge · Joseph Strauss

Stops on this tour

  1. Ferry Building and the Embarcadero - Where the City Met the World
  2. Financial District and Jackson Square - Gold Rush on the Old Shoreline
  3. Chinatown - The Neighborhood That Refused to Move
  4. North Beach and Telegraph Hill - Little Italy and the Beats
  5. Fisherman's Wharf - Italian Boats and Old Ships
  6. Nob Hill and Russian Hill - Cable Cars, Mansions and the Great Fire
  7. The Presidio - Two Centuries Guarding the Golden Gate
  8. Japantown and the Fillmore - Two Communities, One Neighborhood
  9. Haight-Ashbury - From Victorian Suburb to Summer of Love
  10. Golden Gate Park - Sand Dunes Turned Into a Park
  11. The Castro - A Neighborhood That Became a Movement
  12. The Mission - Where San Francisco Began
  13. Civic Center - Domes, Charters and Protest
  14. South of Market - From Rincon Hill to the Tech Boom