History
The ten guns of the fort were fired in action only twice. The first time was in 1803 during the Battle of San Diego. The Spanish had detained the American brig Lelia Byrd in San Diego Harbor for smuggling otter skins. The ship's crew overpowered their Spanish captors and were headed out of the harbor when the guns of the fort sought to prevent her escape. Fire from the Lelia Byrd's guns drove the fort's gunners to seek cover.
The fort again fired on an American smuggler in 1828. This time, the fort was under Mexican control and the vessel was the Franklin.
In 1848, during the Mexican American War, the American ship USS Cyane landed American Marines at nearby La Playa. The marines took abandoned guns from Fort Guijarros and used them to lay siege to Old Town San Diego.
In 1873 the United States Army took over Ballast Point and built gun batteries for the defense of San Diego. These installations were maintained through World War I and World War II. A lighthouse known as the Ballast Point Light was built on Ballast Point in 1890 and survived until 1957. In 1962 the United States Navy built a submarine base on Ballast Point as home port for the Pacific Fleet's nuclear attack submarines. The Fort Guijarros Museum Foundation conducts archeological digs and historical research into the history of Ballast Point.
Read more about this topic: Fort Guijarros
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,—for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)