Fort Pickens: Forts of Pensacola Bay | In Your Own Backyard | WSRE

It’s a pentagonal structure, 21 1/2 million bricks strong. Sitting at the entrance to Pensacola Bay, its construction began in the late 1820’s in an effort to defend the Pensacola Harbor.
Throughout the centuries, it witnessed Confederate aggression under Union control as well as a disastrous fire and outbreaks of dysentery among the troops. In the 1880’s it housed Geronimo, the famous Apache warrior and medicine man. It’s Fort Pickens, and if you find yourself at the western end of Santa Rosa Island, you’ll discover it, right in your own backyard. Come along as a seasoned Gulf Islands National Seashore park ranger takes you on a tour through this magnificent fort.