Repairing Fort Jefferson off Key West.......

[JupiterSunsation]

Not sure it is an ideal way to spend stimulus money but it looks like a cool place. I have always wanted to go but never seem to have the time when I am in Key West!




http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/13/flo...ex.html?hpt=C1

Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida (CNN) -- Weather and time have inflicted more damage to Fort Jefferson than hostile cannon fire ever did.

The crumbling citadel rises 40 feet from the turquoise water of the Gulf of Mexico, an outpost of a bygone era. Built on an island in Florida's Dry Tortugas, 70 miles past Key West, the fort is being restored by a squad of craftsmen who spend three-week shifts there between hurricane seasons.

A cocoon of mesh and scaffolding shrouds one section of its 8-foot-thick walls as they work. It's a grueling job, but it's one Dennis Wood, a mason from Massachusetts, says he's glad to have.

"Things are slow today, you know," Wood said. "Got a job offer to come down here for the winter, so we took it."

Efforts to restore Fort Jefferson have been under way for about 30 years. The current phase received a boost from the economic stimulus bill that passed Congress in 2009, which devoted $7 million to the project. But planners estimate another $13 million is needed, and that money has yet to be allocated.

The six-sided fort, roughly the size of Yankee Stadium, was designed to protect shipping lanes through the Gulf of Mexico. Construction began in 1846, but advancements in the science of artillery rendered it obsolete before it was finished. During the Civil War, the Confederacy never bothered to try to seize it from Union forces.


The Union kept a garrison of about 2,000 men there and used it mostly as a prison for Confederate captives and deserters. It wasn't until after the war that it received its most famous inmate -- Samuel Mudd, the Maryland doctor convicted of aiding Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, by setting his broken leg.

Mudd served more than three years at Fort Jefferson before receiving a pardon in 1869. The Army abandoned the fort in 1874, but the islands served as a staging area for U.S. warships during the Spanish-American War in 1898 and housed a seaplane base during World War I.

It takes a 2 1/2-hour ride on a catamaran ferry to get to Fort Jefferson. The installation and the surrounding national park draw about 52,000 visitors a year, according to the National Park Service. But more than a century and a half of hurricanes and salt air have taken their toll on the massive walls.

The iron shutters that shielded the fort's guns have expanded as they rust, cracking and displacing the surrounding walls.

Wood, the six other masons and eight laborers who are working to restore Fort Jefferson were unemployed before this job, said Ken Uracius, the project manager for Enola Contracting Inc., which is doing the work. Uracius estimates about 100 people see some sort of work from the project.

"I have boat captains," he said. "I have people running the boat that brought you out here. I have brick makers, I have cement makers."

Work has gone on periodically for the past 30 years and is likely to go on for many more. But the Park Service says it's important to save a unique monument.

"If we lose Fort Jefferson, that's it," said Kelly Clark, who oversees the reconstruction project for the Park Service. "There are no other Fort Jeffersons."

[Wobble]

Not sure it is an ideal way to spend stimulus money but it looks like a cool place. I have always wanted to go but never seem to have the time when I am in Key West!

I am thrilled to hear about this project. We are losing way to much of this countries history to decay.

I would love to go and visit the Fort.

[BBB725]

I was there last week, but didn't get a good shot of the on going repairs

[JupiterSunsation]

BBB

Did it look like a 7mm job was going on?

[THEJOKER]

I have always wanted to see that place!

[BBB725]

BBB

Did it look like a 7mm job was going on?

That's a loaded question. Yes and no, a normal job no for out there yes.
There are no bathrooms, no running water, no power, no where to stay over night and a 140 miles of travel per day. Gets expense real quick.
They are working on the east side now, if I remember right 220 million bricks something like that, it is a big place.

[Bobcat]

actually there are showers and bathrooms, you just have to know the right people. we looked hard at doing this a few years back, but could not make the numbers work. I wanted to do it (tuck work) on coolness alone.

[BBB725]

actually there are showers and bathrooms, you just have to know the right people. we looked hard at doing this a few years back, but could not make the numbers work. I wanted to do it (tuck work) on coolness alone.

Porta potti's don't count

[Bobcat]

They have a nice set up for the Rangers that don't leave. We could not do it logistically and break even.....I tried and tried to make it work just to say " I worked out there in 2002" plus the sunsets are spectacular !

[JupiterSunsation]

That's a loaded question. Yes and no, a normal job no for out there yes.
There are no bathrooms, no running water, no power, no where to stay over night and a 140 miles of travel per day. Gets expense real quick.
They are working on the east side now, if I remember right 220 million bricks something like that, it is a big place.

Too bad they couldn't get a few 5th wheel type campers on site. It would certainly help with the commuting! M-Fri live on site, weekends back to mainland.

[Expensive Date]

Sounds like a good SOS class trip for KW 2010.

[THEJOKER]

Sounds like a good SOS class trip for KW 2010.

Yes I'm in.......with 17ft of cabin area and air I can sleep on the boat!

[htrdlncn]

Too bad they couldn't get a few 5th wheel type campers on site. It would certainly help with the commuting! M-Fri live on site, weekends back to mainland.

What about a big houseboat , Just leave it teid up there and commute only when you need supplies?

[Bobcat]

That's what we planned to do, and ride the high speed cat home on weekends. but when you start talking about scaffolding and bricks and mortar (and beer) we would have sank on the way there ! plus the mosquitos out there are swarming.

[JupiterSunsation]

That's what we planned to do, and ride the high speed cat home on weekends. but when you start talking about scaffolding and bricks and mortar (and beer) we would have sank on the way there ! plus the mosquitos out there are swarming.

Being a federal park, I bet the "beer" is not allowed.....

Mosquitos would be a total deal breaker for sure. If there are mangroves out there I suspect the "no seeums" would be swarming as well!

[Bobcat]

We always take a cooler while touring the fort, people camp and drink there a lot.

[Madpoodle]

One of my favorite places in the world. I for one am delighted they are refurbishing it, it is a stupendous monument to the people who thought it up, and the people who built it.

[Bobcat]

The cool part about doing that kind of repair work is that you have to replace/fix the brick exactly how it was, if the brick was crooked you would chip out the old,then reseat the brick crooked again. we did a lot of the old buildings in KW that way.

[sonicss31]

Took the kids out there three years ago and absolutely had a great time. A lot of history to be learned and appreciated. Do yourselves a favor and put this place on your bucket list.