G.A.S.P.

The next morning (2-12) I rode one more mile west and toured historic Fort Pickens.  It was built between 1829 and 1834, and was part of a national defense system designed to protect key harbors from any invading enemy.  The key harbor here is Pensacola, home to large US Navy installations then and now.  This was a fortress, not just a fort.  It was built of brick – over 21.5 million of them, most made locally and barged to the island.  The Strong and Underhill Company of New Orleans provided the workforce of skilled slaves, and other slaves were obtained locally for unskilled labor.  When completed, the fort housed dozens of large cannon and hundreds of Army soldiers. 

Over the next few decades, however, the fort became obsolete.  By the end of the Civil War, brick walls were no longer a suitable barrier to new powerful weapons.  In response, the Army built several reinforced concrete fortifications in the Fort Pickens area, including one within the brick walls of the fort.  New, more powerful, weapons were added as well, including a 15-inch Rodman cannon. This pattern of obsolescence and upgrade continued through WWII when improved seaborne assault tactics, guided missile technology and the atomic bomb all combined to render the concept of coast defense obsolete.  Following WWII, the Army closed its coast defense bases including Fort Pickens in 1947.  It still makes a nice place to visit, however, with much of the Fort still retaining the flavor of how it looked in the 1830s. One exception is the northwest corner (Bastion D) which exploded on June 20, 1899 when a warehouse fire reached an ammunition magazine containing 8000 pounds of gunpowder. About a half-million of those bricks got scattered over the surrounding one and a half miles. 

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Fort Pickens is also the site where Geronimo and numerous other Apache Indians were imprisoned from 1886 to 1888 following their surrender in Arizona.  They were later sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma where Geronimo died in captivity a few years later.

After leaving Fort Pickens, I rode along the coast for about 30 miles, partly within the National Seashore and party along privately owned land.  The Gulf Islands National Seashore was established in 1971 to protect the remaining undeveloped areas of these barrier islands, some in Florida and some in Mississippi. 

So just what are barrier islands and why are they worth preserving.  The barrier islands are long, narrow strips of land lying just offshore of the mainland in many places, including the Gulf coast.  Those that make up the Gulf Islands National Seashore are formed of fine quartz sand carried to the sea by rivers flowing south from the Appalachian Mountains.  They are termed barrier islands because they protect the mainland coast from ocean waves and violent storms. 

It’s somewhat of a mystery as to just how the barrier islands were formed.  All theories, however, include the elements of wind, waves and fluctuating sea levels.  Whatever their origin, it’s clear that they are always changing.  In the Gulf of Mexico, the currents near the shore constantly wear away the eastern end of the islands and build them up on the western ends.  The islands steadily shift westward as a result, noticeably so, even in a lifetime, as opposed to many of Mother Nature’s other works (mountain building and wearing for example) that occur over a much longer expanse of time.  In 1969, Hurricane Camille split Ship Island (Mississippi) in two, and in 1979, Hurricane Frederic pushed dunes clear across parts of Santa Rosa Island (Florida). 

Vegetation is important to the preservation of the barrier islands.  Plants and grasses such as sea oats and cordgrass have extensive root systems that literally hold the islands together.  Behind the primary dunes, shrubs and small trees grow and provide habitat for a variety of wildlife including raccoon, opossum and many varieties of birds.  Generally, long stretches of pristine beach surround the barrier islands and provide mankind with wonderful places for swimming, surfing, fishing, walking and just plain sitting. 

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On my way out of the National Seashore campground, I stopped at the Ranger Station to pay my camping fee (since I had arrived so late the evening before).  I talked to Mrs. Maloney there, and in the course of discussing the origin point of my journey, discovered that we both graduated from the same high school – Coventry High in the Portage Lakes near Akron (she in 1956 and me in 1965).  

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