Fort Point has served as a military, maritime, and tourist center on the Penobscot River. In 1758, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Pownall argued that a fort there was crucial to the English war against the French, and in May 1759 he brought 400 men to build Fort Pownall. Although the fort did not fulfill its military purposes after Quebec fell to the English, it encouraged later English settlement of the Penobscot region and served as a center for trade. On the eve of the American Revolution, British sailors secretly removed the fort's guns in March 1775 to keep them from rebels, and American rebels then burned the blockhouse and filled in the moat to prevent British occupation. In 1836, Fort Point Light Station was established as the first river light in Maine to aid ships traveling between Bangor and Castine, and in 1857 the present tower and keeper's house replaced the original granite structures. For more than 120 years, civilian keepers employed by the U.S. Lighthouse Establishment tended the station before the Coast Guard took over operational duties in 1957, and today the automated light and fog signal are operated by Maine's Bureau of Parks and Lands as a historic site. Fort Point also became a tourist destination in 1872 with the construction of the Fort Point Hotel, which could host up to 200 guests and offered amenities such as running water, gas lights, stables, a bowling alley, and two dance pavilions, but after four owners and as many names it burned in May 1898 before its seasonal opening.