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'''Fort Pickens''' is a pentagonal historic United States military fort on [[Santa Rosa Island]], at the entrance to [[Pensacola Bay]]. It is named after [[Wikipedia:American Revolutionary War|American Revolutionary War]] hero [[Andrew Pickens]]. The fort was completed in [[1834]] and remained in use in some form until [[1947]].
==Design and construction==
The Fortifications Bill of 1828 was signed into law by President John Quincy Adams on [[May 24]] of that year. It allocated $50,000 for the construction of fortifications at Pensacola. A supplemental appropriation the following year allocated another $55,000.<ref name="Bearss">Bearss, Edwin C. [http://palmm.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/uwf%3A3960#page/1/mode/1up ''Historic Structure Report, Fort Pickens''.] U.S. Department of the Interior, 1983.</ref>
The land on the western end of Santa Rosa Island on which the proposed fort was to be located was owned by [[Henry Michelet]]. On [[May 28]], [[1828]], the United States purchased 1,181 acres from Michelet for the sum of $4,000. On [[June 4]], [[1829]], a contract with [[Underhill and Strong]] for construction of the fort was approved by Chief Engineer [[Wikipedia:Charles Gratiot|Charles Gratiot]] of the Army Corps of Engineers.<ref name="Bearss" />
[[Image:Fort Pickens map 1861.png|thumb|right|1861 sketch of the fort]]
French engineer [[Wikipedia:Simon Bernard|Simon Bernard]] was appointed to design Fort Pickens. The fort is pentagonal in shape with walls 40 feet high and 12 feet thick. <ref>Kaiser, Harvey H. ''The National Park Architecture Sourcebook.'' Princeton Architectural Press, 2008.</ref> Construction on Fort Pickens lasted from [[1829]] to [[1834]], with 21.5 million bricks being used to build the fort. Much of the construction was done by slave labor.
Fort Pickens was the largest of a group of forts designed to fortify Pensacola's harbor. Fort Pickens supplemented [[Fort Barrancas]], [[Fort McRee]], and the [[Navy Yard]]. Located at the western tip of Santa Rosa Island, just offshore from the mainland, Pickens guarded the island and the entrance to the harbor. Its construction was supervised by Colonel [[William H. Chase]] of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Ironically, during the [[Civil War]] some years later, Chase was later appointed by the State of Florida to command its troops and seize for the South the very fort he had built.