Description

Fort Gaines is an interesting place to learn more about historic forts. The tour is self-guided, and this is a well preserved fort constructed in the mid 1800's. It is just across from the Sea Lab Estuarium. It has a wonderful view of the bay from the fort. Fort Gaines was named after General Edmund Pendleton Gaines, a hero of the War of 1812. The fort is located on the eastern tip of Dauphin Island, at the western approach to Mobile Bay. Originally designed in 1818, construction did not begin until 1857. Army chief engineer Joseph Totten then scrapped the original 1819 plans and designed the pentagonal-shaped Fort Gaines using the latest French fortification theory of the 1850s to guard the seaward approaches to Mobile Bay and the eastern entrance of the Mississippi Sound. Construction on Fort Gaines began in 1857, but the fort was incomplete when Alabama state militia seized it on January 5, 1861, in anticipation of the state seceding from the Union, which it did January 11. Confederate engineers completed the fort over the next several years. It remained in Confederate hands until August 1864, when it fell in the same Union attack that brought down Fort Morgan. As with Fort Morgan, engineers quickly repaired Fort Gaines, but it also languished in the years after the Civil War. The Fort was eventually sold the the Town of Dauphin Island in 1924. It is now operated by the Dauphin Island Park and Beach Board and is open to the public.