Tuesday's Fun Filled Fact ‘bout San Francisco: Fort Point

From the SFHotelStories History File: Places

Fort Point

In 1776 (why does that year sound familiar), Spanish Explorers built two buildings: The Mission Dolores, and the original adobe fort which stood watch over the Golden Gate

Spanish - adobe

Between 1853 and 1861, the Army Corps of Engineers rebuilt the fort on the original sight of the original Spanish Adobe structure,

Fort Point was temporary refugee camp for those displaced by the 190t Earthquake and Fire.

When the Golden Gate Bridge was being designed, there was actually a plan to demolish the Civil War-era structure for the southern anchorage of the bridge. The public demanded the bridges' engineers find a way to spare the beloved little fort, and they did. You will notice that a small extension of the bridges was built for the sole purpose of bypassing Fort Point.

Films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, and TV's Nash Bridges were filmed in Fort Point.

In fact in the film Vertigo, Jimmy Stewart follows Kim Novak to Fort Point at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, where she jumps into the bay. When he rescues her from the ocean, he takes what looks like a boat landing with steps that descend to the water. In a bit of Hollywood trickery, Hitchcock shot the exteriors on location, but had to create the steps in a studio because nothing like that actually existed at Fort Point.

Today Fort Point is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, a national park.