Sand in the Coffee, Vol. 115: the forts, and why you save them for october

There’s a fort on Perdido Key. There just isn’t much of it left.

Fort McRee stood on the east tip of the Key, facing the Pass, the channel where Pensacola Bay lets out into the Gulf. Across the water sat Fort Pickens. In November 1861, Union guns at Fort Pickens and two warships spent two days pounding McRee. The Confederates burned what was left when they pulled out of Pensacola in 1862, and storms have handled the rest ever since. What remains is a few scattered foundations.

You can go look. It’s inside Gulf Islands National Seashore, well past the end of the road at Johnson Beach, and it is remote in the honest sense: no restrooms, no water, no shade, no facilities of any kind. It’s a long walk in soft sand. Plan it like a hike, carry more water than seems reasonable, and do not start it at two in the afternoon.

But the forts most people mean are the two that survived, one on each side of us. And this is their month.

why october

A brick fort in July is an oven with a gift shop. Fort Pickens alone took 21.5 million bricks, and brick holds a summer afternoon the way a cast-iron skillet holds a burner. Fall is the first stretch of the year when walking the walls sounds like a plan instead of a dare.

Go in the morning anyway. The light’s better, the parking’s easier, and the kids haven’t yet figured out they’re in a museum.

One more selling point. The arched rooms inside those walls were built to stand up to cannon fire, so if a fall shower wanders through, you’re waiting it out in the one building on this coast that has never once needed plywood.

east: fort pickens

Where: the west tip of Santa Rosa Island, past Pensacola Beach. As the pelican flies, it’s just across the Pass from the Key. By road it’s the long way around: through Pensacola, over to Gulf Breeze, onto Pensacola Beach, then west until the island runs out. Budget an hour or more each way, depending on the bridges’ mood.

What you get: a five-sided fort that stayed in Union hands for the whole Civil War, one of only four Southern forts that can say so, and the place where Geronimo was held prisoner in the 1880s. There are dark passages and stairwells, so bring a flashlight, or at least a charged phone.

What to know: Fort Pickens and Johnson Beach are both part of the same national seashore, and both charge at the gate. Before you pay at the second one, ask whether your receipt from the first one covers it. The road out to the fort also has a long history with storms, so check the national seashore’s alerts before you drive out.

west: fort morgan

Where: the very end of Fort Morgan Road (Highway 180), at the mouth of Mobile Bay. From the Key, head west through Orange Beach on Perdido Beach Boulevard, through Gulf Shores, and keep going until there’s no more road. If you’re staying in Orange Beach, this is your fort. You’re already on the way.

What you get: the fort Admiral Farragut ran his fleet past on August 5, 1864, in the Battle of Mobile Bay, the day that gave us “Damn the torpedoes,” or some version of it, depending on whose account you trust. The fort held out until it surrendered on August 23. It was finished in 1834 and designed by Simon Bernard, the same engineer who drew up poor Fort McRee, and before he was designing forts for the United States he’d worked for Napoleon. So one Frenchman’s handwriting sits at both ends of your beach vacation.

What to know: the Alabama Historical Commission runs it, so check its current hours and admission before you drive to the end of the road. Wear real shoes. It’s brick, sand and stairs.

the move locals brag about: the ferry

From Fort Morgan, the Mobile Bay Ferry carries cars and passengers across the mouth of the bay to Dauphin Island in about 40 minutes. It lands by Fort Gaines, the fort that stood across the channel from Fort Morgan in 1864. That’s two forts and one boat ride, with a better look at the bay than any bridge will give you. Ride back the way you came, or make a loop of it and come home through Mobile.

Two things. At least one ferry runs year-round, but the evening crossings only run during Daylight Saving Time, which ends November 1. So October still has the late boats. And check the schedule the morning you go, because the bay gets a vote.

before you pick a direction

Look at the Gulf first. If the live cam shows it slick calm at 8 a.m. (that’s flat as a tabletop, the highest compliment a local pays the water), it’s a beach day, and the forts will keep. If it’s gray and choppy and the flags on /beach-today/ have gone yellow or red, that’s fort weather.

Those bricks have been waiting since 1834. They’ll wait for a gray Tuesday.

— Chris

P.S. Run a charter, a tour, or the kind of place people duck into on a gray day, on either side of the state line? Add it, free: /submit/