Fort Wetherill

Fort Wetherill occupied a strategic position on fifty- to seventy-foot-high cliffs overlooking Narragansett Bay, with clear views of the horizon and Block Island to the south, as part of an extended harbor defense system during World Wars I and II. The government acquired the first parcels of land for the fort in 1799, later added acreage to bring the military reservation to 61.5 acres, and formally dedicated and named it in 1900. The site contains the largest concrete fortifications of its kind in Rhode Island and, because of spatial constraints, was arranged in an unusually tight linear layout with a range of gun sizes and types, including twelve-inch barbette-mounted and disappearing rifles as well as smaller six-inch and three-inch pedestal guns. Most of the mounted guns and the barracks for officers and enlisted personnel stood at the western end of the reservation, now Fort Wetherill State Park. During World War II, most of the personnel serving there belonged to Rhode Island's 243rd Coast Artillery Regiment, and some later became permanent residents of Jamestown. In the later part of 1945, selected German prisoners of war trained there for a postwar German police force. A complete Submarine Mine and Cable facility with several buildings, a wharf, tram rails, and related structures occupied the easternmost section during the World Wars, and three permanent structures from that area have been preserved and upgraded to house offices of the Department of Environmental Management Division of Fish and Wildlife.

Jamestown, Rhode Island · United States