Fort Gorges

Today's fort is in Maine. As you know, no one lives in or cares about Maine (Ha ha! In fact, two of my three readers are from Maine; figure that one out if you can). During the Civil War, the Union decided to build a fort to protect Portland, a strategically crucial maple syrup port. Fort Gorges was built on a tiny island in the mouth of the harbor. Its design is pretty similar to Fort Pulaski (see first post), except for being built out of granite instead of brick.



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Anyway, although this fort was obsolete before it was finished (rifled artillery and high explosives, alas, the death knells of so many of these beautiful American coastal forts), it turned out that the Confederate Navy was more interested in smuggling cotton to Europe and so the fort never fired a shot in anger. The half-finished fort was half-heartedly maintained until WW2, when it was finished somewhat further and used to store naval mines. Since then it has been abandoned and overgrown.




Since you're in a boat anyway, you might as well also check out another island fort right next door. In the 20th century, another set of more modern earthworks was constructed on another island just south of Fort Gorges to actually defend the harbor against Nazis and maple syrup raiders. The guns are gone, but you can still zoom in to see the emplacements; the semi-circular looking things are where the guns were mounted so they could traverse. Each emplacement is surrounded by a berm of earth so that if one gun took a hit, the resulting explosion wouldn't knock out its neighbors. It's the same way they build fireworks factories.




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What else about Fort Gorges? Let's see... there are no tours, you enter at your own risk, private boat, don't climb on the sod, don't set fires directly on the granite, yada yada yada. The National Park Service recommends that you bring a flashlight to Fort Gorges if you wish to explore the powder magazines on the first floor.

Of course you wish to explore the powder magazines on the first floor!