Golden Gate

National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Fort Barry History Tour Fort Barry - Marin Headlands Golden Gate National Parks An Army Post Standing Guard Over the Marin Headlands Fort Barry soldiers with dairy cows. In the early years, the military and the dairy community lived peacefully side-by-side. However, cows did not always respect military boundaries and occasionally Fort Barry soldiers had to round up wayward dairy cows. (Photo circa 1920) EXPERIENCE YOUR AMERICATM Printed on recycled paper with soy-based inks (rev. 1/2011) Marin Headlands Visitor Center FORT BARRY Bunker Road Rode o on Lago Battery Smith-Guthrie Battery Alexander 1 Fie l d Battery Mendell ds 6 Historic Rife Range 2 (one way) Length: 5 miles Time required: From 1–2 hours, depending on your means of travel. Accessibility: The route around the post is paved but watch for steps and cracked pavement. The batteries are not wheelchair accessible. Restrooms: Public bathrooms are located at the west end of the Marin Headlands Visitor Center parking lot. For your safety: If you are driving, please pull over to take photographs. Take extra caution when walking around the batteries as they have deteriorated in some places. Many of the buildings referenced on the tour are occupied by “park partner” non-proft groups conducting business; please be respectful during your visit. Bonita Cove 3 1 Tour Stop Accessible Parking North Restrooms Point Bonita 1 This tour leads you through diferent parts of historic Fort Barry, covering 5 hilly miles through the Marin Headlands. Stop #1 and Stop # 2 are a comfortable, 1-mile walk where you can spend a pleasant hour wandering through the historic buildings. Stops # 3 to # 7 are farther apart and cover approximately 4 miles so they are better accessed by car. This tour also intersects with the Lagoon Trail and the Coastal Trail. Number of stops: 7 Battery Rathbone/McIndoe Battery Wallace 4 Simmon 5 Hostel Co nz elm an Road Nike Site YMCA 7 Stables Headlands Center for the Arts The Route Fort Barry History Tour: An Army Post Standing Guard Over the Marin Headlands Welcome to Fort Barry, a 1908 army post that protected San Francisco with a line of gun batteries perched at the edge of the Pacifc Ocean. Fort Barry is one of three historic military posts located in the Marin Headlands. Fort Barry, Fort Baker and Fort Cronkhite were all constructed at different times and the army managed each post separately. However, during wartime, all three posts fell under the jurisdiction of the Harbor Defenses of San Francisco. National Park Service Cover: Fort Barry soldiers on their day off visit Battery Mendell with their lady friends. (Photo circa 1908) All images from Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Park Archives and Record Center, unless otherwise noted. 2 1 The U.S. Army in Marin County From the Marin Headlands Visitor Center parking lot, please take a moment to look at the landscape around you at Fort Barry to the east and Rodeo Lagoon and the Pacifc Ocean to the west. Keep in mind that San Francisco and the Golden Gate straits are close by, just over the hills to the south. In response, Secretary of War William C. Endicott made sweeping recommendations for all major seaports, and proposals to modernize and re-arm all the seacoast forts. The “Endicott Program,” as it was informally known, became an expression of America’s new awareness of herself as a growing imperial power, the rise in the country’s industrial strength, and the new developments in military technology. Before Europeans arrived here, the Coast Miwok lived on these lands for centuries. During the 18th and 19th century the Span- After the Spanish-American War (1898) ish and then later the Mexicans settled here. was over, the army turned its attention During the 19th century, prior to the U.S. towards the Marin Headlands, focusing military moving into the area, Marin County on the seacoast fortifcations at the outer was best known for its very successful dairy line of defenses north of the Golden Gate. ranching community. The open land to the Between 1901 and 1905, the army connorth was once dotted with small, indistructed fve powerful batteries at Fort vidual ranches that produced quality milk Barry that represented the new Endicottproducts for San Francisco. San Francisco period upgrades: Battery Mendell, Battery Bay, just over the ridge to the south, with Alexander, Battery Smith-Guthrie, Batits sheltered harbor, rich natural resources, tery Samuel Rathbone and Battery Patrick and mile-wide entrance, has long been O’Rorke. recognized as an ideal location for defense of the naval and port facilities by seacoast fortifcations at the harbor entrance. By the From the Marin Headlands Visitor Center, 1850s, the U.S. Army realized that Marin’s carefully walk from the parking lot, crossproximity to the ocean made for excellent ing Field Road onto Bodsworth Street, and defense sites and began to negotiate the proceed up the hill. Turn left onto Simmonds purchase of the southernmost tip of Marin Road and continue straight towards the buildfor seacoast defense fortifcations. ings, following the signs to the Headlands Center for the Arts and the Marin Headlands By the end of the 1880s, as military technolHostel. You can also pick up the Coastal Trail ogy expanded, many of the army’s “modern” defense systems had become outdated here that leads you to the historic rife range (see Stop # 6) and the Golden Gate Bridge. and the War Department expressed growing concerns about the dilapidated condition of the country’s seacoast fortifcations. 3 Fort Barry History Tour: An Army Post Standing Guard Over the Marin Headlands Rodeo Lagoon in 1913. Even after the army established Fort Barry, the Marin Headlands was still a very rural and open landscape. To the right are two Fort Barry army residences and the post guard house (no longer extant); across the lagoon, a diary farm is nestled in the valley where Fort Cronkhite is now located. (Photo circa 1913) 2 Fort Barry: An Endicott-Period Military Post If time permits, walk down along the main parade ground on Simmonds Road or on the upper Rosenstock Road to get a sense of the historic post’s layout. Once you are at the head of the main parade ground, look back to get a great view of the post and glimpses of Rodeo Lagoon, Fort Cronkhite and Rodeo Beach. Feel free to walk around the historic buildings, keeping in mind that some of the buildings are private residences. National Park Service Like most army posts, Fort Barry functioned as a small, self-suffcient town that supported the needs of the soldiers. The post had its own barracks, hospital, guardhouse (which jailed the occasional disorderly soldier), spacious offcers’ residences, stables, storehouses, even its own bakery. The open, grassy main parade ground in the center of the post was dedicated to drills, marches, parades, and public ceremonies, and served as the physical and organizational center 4 of post life. The army intentionally located Fort Barry’s most signifcant military buildings, like the post headquarters, the hospital, the barracks, and the mess halls, facing the main parade ground. Buildings that served useful but less ceremonial functions, such as the bakery, the storehouses and the coal sheds, were constructed further away from the heart of the post. time when American democracy was in its infancy. The Colonial Revival style is often characterized by large, stocky symmetrical buildings with classical elements, such as columns, porches and wide windows. Most of these historic buildings at Fort Barry still retain much of their original building materials, like metal-pressed ceilings, original plaster walls and built-in cabinetry. The Fort Barry buildings were designed in the Colonial Revival architectural style, which was popular in America at the turn of the 20th century. The goal of this architectural style, which favored clean, simple lines and a minimal use of applied decoration, was to inspire a sentimental remembrance of the United States’ early history, a Fort Barry was named in honor of Brig. Gen. William Farquar Barry, a Civil War U.S. Army artillery offcer who distinguished himself during the capture of Atlanta. Below: Fort Barry in 1928 showing the layout of the post. From left to right are the two barracks, the fre station, the hospital steward’s residence, the post hospital, the post headquarters and four duplex offcers’ residences. The army planted trees around the buildings to provide necessary breaks from the wind. Above: Fort Barry soldiers proudly showing off their state-of-the art, Model 1903 Springfeld rifes. Notice that the soldier fourth from the left is holding a bugle. The army used bugle calls for marking the events of the day and company buglers frequently entered into friendly competitions (Photo circa 1908). Fort Barry’s wood-frame, three-story barrack buildings represented an improvement in military housing. Prior to the Endicottperiod upgrades, living conditions in the U.S. Army were dismal; most buildings were poorly constructed, cramped and unsanitary. However, by the early 1900s, in order to stem the fow of deserters and encourage recruitment, the army began to design larger barracks with a new emphasis on proper ventilation, clean running water and modern toilet facilities. The Fort Barry 5 Fort Barry History Tour: An Army Post Standing Guard Over the Marin Headlands National Park Service barracks, which housed over a hundred soldiers each, refected a new standard for a healthy living environment and provided the men with open, spacious sleeping wards, numerous windows and real beds and mattresses. The barracks’ frst foor contained a large kitchen, a mess hall (the dining room for the enlisted soldiers) and a latrine (bathroom); the dormitories, day rooms (shared recreation rooms), and separate quarters for the non-commissioned offcers were located on the second and 6 Above: A soldier pushes a wheelbarrow of metal cans and frewood up Simmonds Road. Behind him are the guardhouse (left), the post gymnasium (still standing today) and the post exchange (right), where the soldiers bought dry goods, supplies and cigarettes. Some of the historic buildings, including the guardhouse and the post exchange have been removed, which explains the occasional gaps between buildings today. (Photo circa 1908) Above: The Fort Barry cooks and kitchen-patrol (KP-duty) soldiers served three meals a day to over 100 men. Notice that while this traditional army kitchen is complete with the heavy butcher-block table, hanging utensils and a soldier peeling pounds of potatoes, the room itself is not rough or primitive. During this time, the army’s standard kitchen plans still called for ornate, metal-pressed ceilings, gas lighting and an elegant wall clock. (Photo circa 1908) third foor. Each barracks building even had its own tailor and barber shop. All the Fort Barry buildings were built with electricity, hot and cold running water, and proper toilets and shower facilities. days, 10 AM to 5 PM and Sundays, noon to 5 PM. Feel free to go inside the building to view the current artist exhibits and to see the interior of a historic barracks building. As you travel through Fort Barry, you may encounter both artists and their works-inprogress. The fort continues to live on through the activities of the park’s non-proft partners. The Headlands Center for the Arts, The Marin Headlands Hostel, located in located in Buildings 944 and 945, provides a Building 941, offers affordable overnight dynamic environment for artists’ residences, accommodations in the post’s historic hospublic programs, lectures and performances. pital. The Hostel welcomes visitors during The building is open to the public weekbusiness hours. 7 Fort Barry History Tour: An Army Post Standing Guard Over the Marin Headlands The National Park Service is conducting a fuel reduction program in this area which removes hazardous trees to reduce potential fre danger and will help bring back the original look and feel of the historic parade ground. After exploring Fort Barry’s main parade ground, take Rosenstock Road or Simmonds Road back out of the post, towards the visitor center, and turn left onto Field Road. Continue southwest for one mile on this road to the next stop. You will pass the park’s Nike Missile Site. While the site is not included in this tour, it is open to the public Wednesdays through Fridays and the frst Saturday of every month from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. (call 415.331.1453 for more information). National Park Service Stop at the Point Bonita parking lot. The Point Bonita Lighthouse is not on this tour. The trail is open to visitors on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. From the parking lot, take a moment to look around the Bonita Cove area. In front of you are two rounded, 19th century brick water cisterns associated with the lighthouse. Further out are the Golden Gate Bridge and the opening to the bay. The area to the left of the parking lot, now hidden from view by trees, is not open to the public but in 1901, it was home to the Fort Barry Engineer Camp. 8 Above: Point Bonita Reservation around 1915. During this time, there were many activities at the Reservation. There was the Lifesaving Service station (far left); the U. S Army Corps of Engineers’ bunk houses and mess hall (left); the concrete plant (middle); the army stables (right middle) and the lighthouse keepers’ residences (right). The Point Bonita Lighthouse (in the distant left center), constructed in 1855, was the third lighthouse on the West Coast. 3 Engineers’ Camp at Point Bonita Reservation Above: Fort Barry soldiers at ease on the Fort Barry parade ground. Notice the rolling undeveloped hills of the Marin Headlands behind the men and their car. (Photo circa 1918) 9 Fort Barry History Tour: An Army Post Standing Guard Over the Marin Headlands The construction of Fort Barry’s fve new seacoast fortifcations at the edge of the rural Marin Headlands represented a huge engineering undertaking. By 1901, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, responsible for the construction of coastal fortifcations, established an “engineer’s camp” at Point Bonita Reservation. The self-contained construction camp complex included two 150man bunkhouses, an offce, a mess house, a cement mixing plant, stables for 24 horses and a combination carpenter and blacksmith shop – all the necessary functions and facilities to get the large construction jobs done as quickly as possible. National Park Service Once the construction camp was in place, the army engineers had to address the challenges of getting an enormous amount of materials out to a site. At the time, the outer Marin Headlands were so remote from San Francisco and Sausalito (the main shipping town in southern Marin) that the only way to get the men, the building materials, and the large steel gun parts out to the construction sites was on a slow, crude and dangerous mountain road. Taking the topographical challenges into consideration, the engineers determined that it would be cheaper and safer to transport the goods by water. They constructed a wharf at 10 Above: A view of the engineers’ wharf and trestle down at Bonita Cove, as well as the tunnels and walkways leading to the Point Bonita Lighthouse in the background. (Photo circa 1915) Above: A Fort Barry soldier feeding chickens. The Engineering Camp at Point Bonita Reservation was very isolated; in order to obtain fresh food supplies, the soldiers had to brave the winding, treacherous drive to Sausalito. Soldiers managed a fock of chickens to ensure a steady supply of fresh eggs for the military families. (Photo circa 1910) Bonita Cove supported by a 250-foot trestle topped with a railroad track that led from the wharf to the top of the cliff. A powerful hoisting apparatus transferred the heavy goods from the top of the tramway to waiting horses and buggies. Above: The arrival of a seacoast defense gun. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used a speciallydesigned barge for transporting the big guns, carriages and heavy material to the wharf at Bonita Cove. (Photo circa 1902) The engineers needed an endless supply of sand, crushed rock and water, which were the key ingredients in making hundreds of tons of concrete. To reduce material costs and to speed up production, they manufactured their own crude materials directly onsite. A rock quarry was opened below the crest of the hill, and a steam-driven derrick lifted the stone over 90 feet to a crusher. Sand from Rodeo Beach was transported to the concrete mixer on a 1,600-foot tramway and a 20,000-gallon water reservoir was constructed. In the winter months, a 11 National Park Service Fort Barry History Tour: An Army Post Standing Guard Over the Marin Headlands steam engine pumped water to the reservoir from a gulch; in the windy summer months, the army used a windmill. Site excavation prior to the batteries’ construction involved substantial moving of soil. The site was prepared by using plows, scrapers and dynamite blasting after day laborers had removed the undergrowth and trees. Excavated material not reused in “strengthening” the concrete was typically placed in an immediately adjacent dump site. During this time, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ recent experiments with different mixtures of sand and gravel resulted in improved concrete quality. As a result, the Fort Barry batteries were constructed with a much stronger concrete than previous fortifcations elsewhere around the bay. 12 Above: Children of the Point Bonita Reservation. Offcers of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers brought their wives and children to live with them at the construction site. By 1915, there were so many children that the army agreed to provide a school building for the families. Life at Point Bonita Reservation must have been a delight of fresh sea air and wild, open spaces. Notice the sweeping landscape of Bonita Cove in the background. (Photo circa 1915) From the Point Bonita Lighthouse parking lot, continue up the hill on Field Road .2 miles to the parking lot in front of Battery Mendell. To the north, you can see Fort Cronkhite (the World War II cantonment) and behind you, the two big gun emplacements of Battery Wallace (constructed between 1917-1921). The other Fort Barry batteries (Alexander, Smith-Guthrie, O’Rorke and Rathbone-McIndoe) are dug into the frst hill to your left. If time permits, continue out to the ocean overlook near Bird Island and take in the tremendous views. On a clear day, you can see north along the jagged clifs all the way to Point Reyes and south to Ocean Beach and Pacifca. 13 Fort Barry History Tour: An Army Post Standing Guard Over the Marin Headlands Above: Construction of Battery Mendell. To construct these huge batteries, workers erected structural forms created by braced vertical wood planks (at left). They then poured wet concrete into forms and left it to harden or “cure” for several days. Once the concrete had dried and set, the wooden forms were then peeled off from the fnished concrete wall. Note the amount of lumber necessary for this project. (Photo circa 1902) 4 Battery Mendell The engineers began construction of Battery Mendell at the edge of a cliff overlooking the Pacifc in July, 1901. Battery Mendell was named in honor of Col. George Mendell, Corps of Engineers, who was the driving force behind all of San Francisco’s early Endicott coastal defenses. Endicott-era batteries were characterized by concrete construction, partially buried behind thick parapets of National Park Service earth. The cannon were fewer in number, but very powerful, mounted in pairs or occasionally individually, and were more widely separated than in previous designs. Magazines (ammunition rooms) became an integral part of the batteries, placed below the level of the surrounding terrain and enclosed battery commander stations were built into the structure. These 14 Above: Fort Barry soldiers during the construction of Battery Mendell. The men are posing with a large metal base ring, used with a 12” mortar, prior to its installation. Notice the cables and large lumber required to keep the piece in place. (Photo circa 1903) Endicott-period batteries did not provide any covering or overhead protection for the guns because aerial attack wasn’t yet considered a threat. The purpose of Battery Mendell was to fre 1,100 pound artillery shells at enemy ships up to eight miles away. Much of the gun’s value came from its ability to protect itself. 15 Battery Mendell was outftted with the army’s modern innovation: a pair of 12-inch guns on “disappearing carriages.” When the guns were ready to fre, they would rise into position, fre a single shot and then recoil down and out of sight for reloading; ing guns and the soldiers were hidden from enemy view behind a huge concrete parapet camoufaged into the surroundings. Fort Barry History Tour: An Army Post Standing Guard Over the Marin Headlands Above: Target practice at Battery Mendell. The soldiers in the center are loading a powder bag into the breach of the gun in the “down” position. Note that it required six men to push the ramrod to load the gun. In the foreground at left, two men are waiting with a “shot cart” that held the next shell to be loaded. Notice the Point Bonita Lighthouse keepers’ residences behind the white fence at the back left. (Photo circa 1920) “When they had gun practice, they sent a notice around to take your pictures off the walls. We had to go outside at school and put cotton in our ears. One time it moved the schoolhouse walls—[even though the walls were] two inches thick” —Eleanora Alma Hoop, whose father was stationed at Fort Barry in 1909. National Park Service 16 Above: The range fnding crew in the Battery Commander’s station at Battery Smith-Guthrie, 1920. The large telescope is a “Depression Position Finder” used for determining the range to the target. The soldiers with the headphones are talking to the off-site plotting room and gun crews. (Photo circa 1920; courtesy of the California Military Museum) During this early period, the engineers constructed four other batteries: Battery Alexander (1902), Battery Smith-Guthrie (1904), Battery Samuel Rathbone (1905) and Battery Patrick O’Rorke (1905). Later, the army constructed Battery Wallace (1917-1921), Antiaircraft Battery No. 2 (1920-1925), and Battery Construction No. 129 (1942-1944). A complex underground system of communication cables connected all the batteries so that the men stationed throughout the fort could communicate with one another. 17 Above: A plotting room where the soldiers received observation readings from “fre control stations” scattered along the coast and determined the ranges to targets. The men in the center are calculating the general range at the plotting table, while the soldiers at left are using a device that corrected for environmental variables like wind and humidity. (Photo circa 1930s; courtesy of the California Military Museum) Please feel free to explore the other Fort Barry batteries at your leisure, keeping your safety in mind. The construction of the Fort Barry tunnel in 1918 was critical to the post’s activities. The viability of Fort Barry and the new powerful coastal batteries depended heavily on reliable access to Fort Baker and to Sausalito, the post’s sources for military supplies, the railroad and groceries. Before 1918, when the surf was too rough for boats to land at Fort Barry History Tour: An Army Post Standing Guard Over the Marin Headlands the Bonita Cove wharf, connection to the outside world was only available by the treacherous road that followed the coastline from Fort Barry to Fort Baker. After several near-fatal accidents, Fort Barry commanders repeatedly requested funding for a tunnel that would make travel safer. Every request was denied. The country’s entry National Park Service in World War I and the need to make the coast defense batteries as accessible as possible fnally underscored the need for the tunnel; Congress approved the tunnel construction funds shortly after the outbreak of the war. The 2,200 foot tunnel, bored through serpentine rock and lined with tenby-ten inch timbers, was fnished in 1918. 18 Above: One of the battery’s 12-inch gun tubes emerging from the Fort Barry tunnel. (Photo circa 1939; courtesy of the National Archives, Record Group 77) From Battery Mendell, return to Field Road and continue back towards the Marin Headlands Visitor Center, traveling 1.8 miles to the next stop. As you travel on Field Road, you will pass through a cluster of three, small, wood-frame buildings. These building are remnants of Fort Barry’s service area, which originally included a storehouse, a bakery and stables. After the Visitor Center, turn right onto Bunker Road and continue east to the stables at the Presidio Riding Club. While this area is closed to the public, you can easily see the large, unusually-shaped building behind the stables. 19 Fort Barry History Tour: An Army Post Standing Guard Over the Marin Headlands Above: Soldiers preparing their balloon for departure at the Presidio in the 1920s. Measuring 92 ft. long and 32 ft. in diameter, the balloon could stay aloft in winds as high as 70 mph. Dubbed the “sausage balloons,” these airships consisted of a hydrogen-flled body with fns that provided stability in rough air and a suspended wicker basket that held a two-man crew. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army) 5 Fort Barry’s Balloon Hangar Fort Barry is home to one of the two remaining Balloon Service hangars on the West Coast. The U.S. Army began experimenting with air balloons as early as the Civil War, using them to spot artillery fre and watch enemy troop movements. During World War I, both the Allies and Germans experimented with using balloons during National Park Service combat and by the 1920s, the United States Army Air Service dispatched several balloon companies to the Pacifc Coast where they assisted with range fnding for the Coast Artillery’s big guns. Before the army constructed the hangar in 1921, the balloons were stored out in the open valley, where they were tethered to the soft grass with screw anchors and vulnerable to rain and high winds. The army soon realized that the balloon companies 20 balloon basket would lean over and with the help of a telescope, watch for the splash of the shot. Once he saw the splash, he verbally relayed his corrections to the second man in the balloon basket who radioed the information to the plotting room at the battery. These corrections, usually stated simply as “Up 200 yards,” would be factored into the next aiming directions relayed to the gun crew. Then they would conduct the training again to improve the accuracy of the shots. Continue further down Bunker Road away from the beach for another 0.4 miles. Pull over on the left-hand side onto the dirt road and continue towards the small white building. In the open feld in front of you are the remnants of the Department Rife Range. 6 Above: The Fort Barry ballon hangar. The front of the balloon hangar originally had towering sliding doors that hung on the adjacent steel frames when open. The building’s interior was 120’ of clear space, which could easily accommodate an infated observation balloon. During World War II the hangar was remodeled for use as a motor pool building; the sliding doors were removed, and shops and offces were constructed inside. (Photo circa 1940) would need permanent structures for the balloons to avoid damage. Three new balloon hangars, constructed at Fort Barry, Fort Winfeld Scott at the Presidio, and Fort Funston in San Francisco, were enormous, galvanized-iron shed buildings with a unique gambrel shape that allowed for the balloon to be stored either infated or defated. A generator house, connected to the hangar by a buried 6” pipe, provided the highly fammable hydrogen gas used for infating the balloons. To the north of the hangar was a designated “balloon feld,” an 21 open space where the men could lay out their ground tackle and the airships could be launched and retrieved. The Fort Barry air balloons were used for gun fring training. Soldiers suspended in the balloon’s basket worked together with the soldiers at the batteries to track and spot the accuracy of the batteries’ gunfre. A single balloon with two soldiers in the wicker basket would be tethered over the shoreline as a tugboat pulled a target that represented an enemy ship. As a gun battery fred at the target, the soldier in the Fort Barry History Tour: An Army Post Standing Guard Over the Marin Headlands The West Cost Departmental Rife Range at Fort Barry This now quiet, man-made outdoor space used to ring loudly with sounds of rife shots. During the late 1800s, the rife target scores for all of the army companies within the Pacifc Division were so poor that the army was forced to take action. In early 1904, Gen. Arthur MacArthur (then Commander of the Pacifc Division) appointed a Board of Offcers to explore the idea of creating a single Department-wide target range, open to all infantrymen in the Pacifc Division. The Board of Offcers identifed this area in Fort Barry as the most suitable location, but the Secretary of War declined to forward MacArthur’s proposed $125,000 construction project to Congress. Not to be deterred by the lack of funds, Gen. MacArthur found a solution by using his most National Park Service Above: A soldier standing at a fring point, taking a break from fring during the inclement weather. His ammunition belt holds a clip of bullet rounds for his M1903 Springfeld rife. In the background, additional rifes are arranged in teepee-like stacks of four with their barrels pointing upwards. (Photo circa 1941) readily-available resource: the ample supply of Fort Barry soldiers and Alcatraz Island military prisoners. By the end of 1904, the army transferred 100 Alcatraz prisoners to Fort Barry to construct the rife range. Once completed, the Departmental Rife Range operated as a separate entity from the Fort Barry command. A steady stream of units from all sections of the military, 22 including the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy, rotated through the rife range to improve their marksmanship. Over time, a small, wood-frame encampment—including an offce, a post exchange, offcers’ quarters, mess kitchens and a barn—was constructed to support the needs of the visiting troops. While at the rife range, the offcers slept indoors but the troops lived in tents. 7 If you choose to, you may return to the Marin Headlands Visitor Center (1.1 miles), although the rest of the tour does not depend on it. Below: Coast Artillery men in front of the Fort Barry post headquarters’ building. Because of inadequate supplies during the the early days of World War II, soldiers were outftted with left-over World War I-era helmets, rifes and other gear. (Photo circa 1941) World War II at Fort Barry Between 1922 and 1938, there was no permanent garrison assigned to Fort Barry. During this quiet period, visiting military units trained at the rife range and troops from the Presidio maintained the mostlyempty buildings. But in 1939, on the eve of World War II, the post was offcially reactivated and troops were again assigned to man the batteries. Fort Barry now fell under the jurisdiction of the Harbor Defenses of San Francisco (HDSF). The HDSF was assembled and headquartered at Fort Scott on the Presidio. With its area of responsibility stretching 60 miles from Point Reyes in the north to Half Moon Bay in the south, the HDSF was charged with protecting the coastline from naval attack, supporting land defenses against beach assault, and ensuring the safety of friendly ships entering and leaving the San Francisco Bay.