Sunday, February 5, 2012

Gulf Islands National Seashore


Players:  Jenny, Zach & Jackson
Date of Visit: 
January 2012
Website:  www.nps.gov/guis
Location:  Florida & Mississippi (although we just went to the Florida portion)
Entrance Fee:  $8/car, good for 7 days
Type of trip:  Day trip
Park Passport Stamps Available:  11

Recently, we headed over to Pensacola to attend a wedding of a high school friend.  Although it's still in Florida (our home state), it's more than 300 miles from our home -- so we decided to make a weekend of it, and check out Gulf Islands National Seashore while we were visiting the area.  

Gulf Islands National Seashore is the largest national seashore in the park system (who knew?) and protects parts of the natural barrier islands that form along the gulf coast of Florida and Mississippi. Unlike some National Parks, Gulf Islands has several distinct areas on many different islands.  We visited the Fort Pickens, on the west end of Santa Rosa Island, as well as Fort Barrancas, which is in the Naval Air Station on the mainland part of Florida.  We also drove through the Santa Rosa and Okaloosa areas, to the east of Pensacola Beach.  The main visitor center, which we skipped on this trip, is located in the Naval Live Oaks area -- this area sounded intriguing, as it was one of the first federal tree areas in the United States, but unfortunately we ran out of time to visit. 

We began our visit with a trip to Fort Pickens.  The barrier islands of Florida were important from a defensive standpoint, as they block the entrance to Pensacola Bay.  A trio of forts (Pickens, McRee and Barrancas) provided triangulated protection for this important shipping hub.  During the Civil War, Ft. Pickens was defended by Union troops (and was one of only four forts in the south not to be captured by the Confederacy), while Confederate troops captured Ft. Barrancas over on the mainland.  A battle broke out between the two forts in November 1861 which resulted in over 5000 shots/shells being fired into the forts, and ultimately led to the Confederacy withdrawing from Pensacola Bay.

Jackson by one of the cannon in Ft. Pickens