Fort Mason's hidden history: a seized estate, a Civil War battery and the port that shipped soldiers to the Pacific

Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture says about 1.5 million people a year come to its waterfront campus between Aquatic Park and the Marina Green for thousands of events, exhibitions and performances. Its monthly Fort Mason Night Market runs April through December this year. But the piers and warehouses have a longer story, one that includes a presidential land grab, Civil War cannons and the Pacific war.

Two Fort Masons

Fort Mason has two parts. Upper Fort Mason sits on the headland where the original coastal defenses were built. Lower Fort Mason, now Fort Mason Center, sits near the water to the west and was the Army's port, with its piers and warehouses. The whole area is a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places, and the lower port area is a National Historic Landmark District for its role in World War II. Today it's part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Black Point

The tip of the headland is Black Point, named after 1849 for the dark California bay laurel trees on the bluff. The Spanish called it Punta Medanos and built a small artillery battery there in 1797, though it was abandoned by 1806. Its shoreline is the last stretch of original San Francisco coastline east of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Frémont's lost estate

The heart of the fort was once private property owned by John C. Frémont, the explorer who led the American conquest of California and ran as the Republican Party's first presidential nominee in 1856. According to a later lawsuit by his descendants, Frémont bought 13.5 acres there in the mid-1850s for $42,000 and spent about $40,000 more improving it. After his clashes with President Lincoln led him to resign his Union Army command, the government seized the property in 1863 by Lincoln's executive order, without payment, saying it was needed for the war. In 1870 the government returned land to 49 nearby owners, but not to Frémont. At least 24 congressional committees voted to compensate him, and Frémont's heirs were still suing over it in 1968.

Cannons and a name

In 1864 the Army built a temporary battery at what was then called Point San Jose, with a breast-high brick wall and mounts for six 10-inch Rodman cannons and six 42-pounder guns. Excavations in the early 1980s uncovered the well-preserved western half, which has been restored to its Civil War condition. The post was named Fort Mason in 1882 for Richard Barnes Mason, a military governor of California before statehood.

Gateway to the Pacific

In 1912 the Army began building the piers and warehouses as a home base for its transport ships serving Alaska, Hawaii, the Philippines and other Pacific posts. In 1932 it became the San Francisco Port of Embarkation. During World War II it was the principal port for the Pacific campaign. By the war's end, Fort Mason and 13 other facilities made up the San Francisco Port of Embarkation, the second largest of the Army's eight ports of embarkation. It was disestablished in 1955.

Visiting

Fort Mason Center is at 2 Marina Blvd., at Buchanan Street. It hosts nearly two dozen nonprofit and arts organizations as permanent residents, and hours vary by organization and program. The center's main office is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., except holidays. Walk up to the headland for views of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge, then look for the restored Civil War battery on the upper fort.