Castillo De San Marcos National Monument

Castillo de San Marcos National Monument

Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, site of the oldest masonry fort in the United States, built by the Spaniards on Matanzas Bay between 1672 and 1695 to protect the city of St. Augustine, in northeastern Florida. Established as Fort Marion National Monument in 1924, it was renamed in 1942. The park has an area of about 25 acres (10 hectares).

The fort is a bastioned structure of coquina (shell stone) with walls 33 feet (10 metres) high and 12 feet (4 metres) thick, surrounded by a moat (now dry). It was the 10th fort built on the site, the previous structures having been built of wood. It played an important role in the struggle between the Spanish and the British for control of the Southeast (c. 1670–1763) and was later held by the British (1763–83). After the United States acquired Florida (1819–21), the fort’s name was changed from Castillo de San Marcos to Fort Marion in honour of the colonial American soldier Francis Marion. It subsequently served mainly as a military prison. Native Americans were held there during the Second Seminole War (1835–42) and in the 1870s and ’80s, and Confederate soldiers were imprisoned in it during the American Civil War. The fort was decommissioned in 1900, having never been attacked or captured but rather having changed hands only through agreements and treaties.