- Location
- Foster’s Bank (Perdido Key)
- Years
- 1839 - 1906
- Now
- Gulf Islands National Seashore
Fort McRee was a bent elliptical military fort located on Foster’s Bank, at the eastern tip of what is now Perdido Key. It was part of a trio of fortifications, along with Forts Pickens and Barrancas, built to defend the entrance of Pensacola Bay. Constructed between 1834 and 1839 by enslaved laborers, the fort used 15 million bricks. William Henry Chase of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was the primary contractor, and the total cost was $335,000.
At the dawn of the Civil War, Union troops stationed around Pensacola Bay abandoned forts McRee and Barrancas for the more defensible Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island. State militia, and later Confederate forces, secured McRee and the Navy Yard. McRee sustained heavy damage by Union artillery barrages in November 1861 and January 1862, rendering it a loss.
After the war, bricks from the ruins were salvaged to make repairs at Barrancas. Storms and erosion continued to degrade the remaining structure until a 1906 hurricane erased all that was left.
