Ft. What?

Colonial Revival duplex

Ask a dozen randomly chosen San Diegans the location of Ft. Rosecrans or — tougher still — Ft. Guijarros, and if more than one could come up with the answer, I’d be surprised. The irony is that anyone who’s ever gazed out over San Diego Bay from downtown has looked right at it. More ironic is the fact that the land today is some of the most scenic and historic in Southern California. But the Navy owns and occupies it, and in these security-conscious times that means most folks most of the time can’t set foot there.

I was happy to take advantage of an exception last week, when the Navy permitted the Save Our Heritage Organization, in conjunction with the Ft. Guijarros Museum Foundation, to present a public tour on the Point Loma base. Ron May, chairman of the Foundation’s board of directors, served as the hugely knowledgeable guide for the two-hour-plus outing. May was the archeologist and historian who for 15 years led the excavations of Ft. Guijarros, the fortifications established by the Spanish in 1796 just a few paces away from where Cabrillo had landed at Ballast Point (“guijarros” means “pebbles”) The archaeological dig ended in 1996, and there’s not a lot today to mark the dig site, so the tour didn’t stop there. But we did visit the laboratory where Foundation volunteers have since processed and archived hundreds of thousands of historic artifacts.

Not all have come from the old Spanish fort. Some are from the nearby location where the Packard Whaling Company from 1865-1880 slaughtered gray whales and rendered their fat into oil. Other items – ceramics, toys, pismo clam shells and more – came from the fishing camp inhabited by Chinese immigrants in the 1860s and early 1870s. After being recorded and bagged and placed in archival boxes, all the artifacts are stored in a climate-controlled bunker that once served as the military’s hospital morgue.

The tour also took us to three other intriguing places on the base:

– Battery Wilkeson, the oldest standing US military battery in San Diego, was built in 1898 and once trained four 10-inch rifles on San Diego Bay to discourage would-be invaders.  The guns are gone now, but the 32-foot-thick walls studded with huge boulder’s from San Diego’s backcountry are still impressive.

Artillery Ordnance Repair Facility

– All sorts of guns and mortars were set up on Pt. Loma over the decades, and only once or twice did any of them ever fire upon an enemy.  But the soldiers sometimes practiced with them (shattering windows as far away as downtown). To repair and maintain the enormous 16-inch rifles installed in underground bunkers during World War II, the Army built a repair facility equipped with huge, ceiling-mounted cranes that could move tons of equipment. Never before opened to the public, we got to visit this barn-like structure. Its rich mahogany-colored rough-hewn wooden ceiling is oddly beautiful.

Being on the base feels like stepping back in time, so it seems fitting that another opportunity to visit it will be a World-War-II-themed swing dance from 7 to 11 p.m. Saturday, November 14. A fundraiser for the Foundation, this will be held in the base’s Argonaut Hall. May says when the dance was first held, last year, people came from as far as San Francisco wearing 1940s military uniform costumes to play the part of Air Corps pilots, nurses, and soldiers, as well as civilians from the period. (Although the Foundation’s website is still under construction, May can be contacted through his history consulting company, Legacy 106.)

Two other opportunities to visit the base will occur from 3 to 6 p.m. September 19, when the Foundation holds its annual Fort Guijarros Fiesta fundraiser (authentic Spanish dancing and paella), and then on Sunday, September 27, when the annual  re-enactment of Cabrillo’s landing will take place starting at 1 p.m. For that and the accompanying festivities (music, dancing, children’s activities and demonstrations, and foods of Native Americans, Mexico, Portugal and Spain), the base will be open to the public with admission from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.