Fort Gorges

Fort Gorges, built on Hog Island Ledge and named for Sir Ferdinando Gorges, was positioned to provide supplemental fire to Forts Preble and Scammel, deter vessels entering Portland Harbor through the channels on either side of Peaks Island, and repel attackers approaching behind Great Diamond Island. Construction began in 1858 and accelerated during the Civil War. Designed as a truncated octagon with a long sixth side at the rear, similar to Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, it had granite walls four feet thick, double-tiered arched gun galleries intended to hold 28 cannon on each level, rifle slits along the rear wall, and a top tier designed for 39 gun emplacements. Its wall gun ports had iron shutters that opened and closed automatically with the firing of track-mounted cannon. Although construction was nearly complete by 1865, no guns had been mounted by the end of the war, and the demonstrated ineffectiveness of cannon against steel-hulled ships, shown by the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack, helped make the fort obsolete. In 1871 the Army Corps of Engineers ordered earthworks on top of the granite walls, with sodded sand parapets to protect 14 large Rodman guns planned for the roof, but these modifications were still unfinished when Congressional appropriations ended in 1876. In the twentieth century, a storehouse was built on the parade ground, submarine mines were kept there for use in World Wars I and II, and after being declared surplus in the 1950's, Fort Gorges was transferred to the City of Portland in 1960.

South Portland, Maine · United States