Portland, ME, 04101 US / ME
After the War of 1812 the US Army Corps of Engineers proposed a new fortification on Hog Island Ledge to support forts Preble and Scammel and to cover the northeastern approaches to the harbor. Funding for the fort was approved by Congress in 1857, and construction began the next year. A wharf and stone cutting shed were built on Hog Island Ledge, footings laid, and erection of the walls begun. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, work was speeded up. By 1864, the fort was well on its way to completion and twenty-six guns had been mounted while construction continued. By 1865, work was completed according to the original plan, and it was named in honor of Sir Ferninando Gorges, colonial proprietor of Maine.In 1869 a modernization project was begun to upgrade the fort. Guns and gun platforms on the third level were removed, and new emplacements for larger guns begun on the north, east and west faces with adjacent powder magazines, with parapets and magazines protected by sod-covered sand. An embankment or "parados" of sod-covered sand was built on the south face to protect the rear of the guns and magazines. A two-story "great magazine" was built on the east end of the parade ground to store the large amounts of powder required by larger guns. Thirty-four guns remained mounted in the casements on the first and second levels of the fort.In 1876, Congress ended funding for the modernization project with work on the third level unfinished. At the time of the Spanish War, thirty-one guns remained mounted, but these were salvaged shortly thereafter. In 1897, the Army constructed a submarine mine storehouse in the center of the parade ground with a small railroad running from it to a crane at the end of the wharf. A caretaker, Charles Rust, and his family lived in the fort in the apartments to the east of the entrance until 1916. His granddaughter was born there.In the 1930s, the Coast Guard installed an aid-to-navigation beacon in the fort which was powered by a generator and shown out through one of the gun embrasures. In 1940s, rolls of steel cable for submarine mines, submarine nets or moorings were stored in the fort in the mine storehouse and casements In 1946, the fort was declared surplus by the General Services Administration. In 1960, Fort Gorges was acquired by the City of Portland as an historic site.(Source: Southern Maine Community College website)
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