LIDAR giving a great look at old coastal forts
Capable of holding an amazing 450 cannon in its massive six-sided, double-tiered walls (although never even halfway armed), Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas required 16 million bricks to complete over 15 years and is the largest masonry structure in the Americas.
There were 42 principal masonry forts and dozens of smaller batteries built as part of the U.S. “Third System” of coastal defense between 1816 and 1867 to protect major harbors.
You know many of them as they are preserved as state or NPS parks. Forts Gaines and Morgan in Mobile Bay. Pickens and Barrancas in Pensacola. Massachusetts on Ship Island. Trumbull and Griswold in New London. Pulaski and Jackson in Savannah. Taylor in Key West. A dozen nearly forgotten forts around New Orleans. And so on, and so on.
Constructed using millions of bricks and likely billions of manhours of hard labor, many have been reclaimed by nature, abandoned in the 20th Century as relics made obsolete by better naval guns, aircraft carriers, and missiles.
The folks at LIDAR have been giving us a peek at what remains under the kudzu, pines, and centipede grass at some of these lost fortifications.
This is just a treat for fort lovers like myself.
Lidar Fort McAllister near Savannah, Georgia
Lidar Fort Sherman—Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
Lidar Fort Trenholm, SC
Lidar Fort Morgan — Baldwin County, Alabama
Lidar Fort Clinch — Amelia Island, Florida
Lidar Fort Gadsden, Florida
Keep it up, LIDAR!