Quiet Fort Norfolk faces touristy future

On nice days like we've been having, you can stand on a curved, grassy rampart that overlooks Norfolk Harbor and imagine the ebb and flow of history. This is the seaward wall of Fort Norfolk, one of the most historic, but least celebrated, forts in America.

But this unassuming bastion, which has assumed many lives during more than 200 years, may soon take on a new role as a magnet for tourists and as an anchor for part of the city that is ripe for development, the Fort Norfolk-Atlantic City area.

After years of patient prodding by the Norfolk Historical Society, plans to turn the fort’s powder magazine into a museum for rare naval artifacts have gained the backing of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Hampton Roads Naval Museum – in short, the Army and Navy.

The magazine, a massive structure of domed, vaulted bays supported by granite pillars, would become a showcase for what is now a warehouse of historic items. Included in the collection are pieces salvaged from the Cumberland, one of the Union ships sunk in Hampton Roads by the Confederate ironclad Virginia in 1862. Others are from the Florida, a captured Confederate raider that was sunk in Hampton Roads near the Cumberland wreck.

One of the most memorable things about the magazine is sound effects created by the honeycomb of domes. A footstep sounds like the crack of ice on a frozen lake. A shouted word echoes for several seconds. A muted voice can be heard dozens of yards away.

“Can you hear me?” asked Louis Guy, president of the Norfolk Historical Society on a recent tour of the fort. He was speaking in a normal voice at what should have been shouting distance but could be clearly heard.

Norfolk Historical recently restored an 1810 Carpenter’s Shop and officers’ quarters at the fort, both with the help of generous grants. Restoring the magazine would be a major undertaking, costing an estimated $1.5 million, a tidy sum these days.

To passionate historians like Guy, it’s worth beating the bushes.

“I think it’s too fine an opportunity for us to miss out on,” he said.

The origins of Fort Norfolk go back to 1794 when Congress authorized President George Washington to build fortifications to protect 19 seaports along the East Coast. It’s the only one of those early forts still standing.

First built of earthen walls with wooden supports, it was hurriedly upgraded with masonry walls in 1810 after a second war with Britain appeared imminent. Those white-painted walls survive today.

When war did come, Fort Norfolk might have been captured, but it was spared by defenders at Craney Island – many of them recruited from the fort – who drove off British invaders. The fort was again upstaged by events. Because of the British attack, Fort Monroe and Fort Wool were built and took over defense responsibilities.

Fort Norfolk fell into disuse until taken over by the Navy in 1849 as a weapons annex to Gosport Navy Yard. That’s when the powder magazine, with 4-foot-thick walls, was built on the fort’s parade ground.

So dangerous was the operation that the magazine was equipped with a heavy bronze door to ward against sparks. The door still guards the magazine.

A set of narrow-gauge rail tracks ran from the front of the magazine to the wharf, where powder and shells could be off-loaded from rail cars to ships. This system became enormously valuable to the Confederacy. Just after Virginia seceded from the Union, the fort, along with its ammunition, was seized. On its way out to do battle with the Union blockade, the Virginia stopped by to take on its lethal ordnance.

The fort served both sides in the Civil War. First it was a river battery defending the city and the Confederacy’s chief naval station at Gosport. Then, after Norfolk fell to Northern forces, it became a Union prison. Graffiti left by captured blockade runners still can be seen on the walls of what was once the officers’ quarters.

After the war, the fort was returned to the Navy for use as an ordnance depot. It was taken over by the Corps of Engineers, Norfolk District, in 1923. The 4-acre fort is tucked in behind the Corps’ waterfront headquarters. Visitors must show IDs and hunt for limited parking spots, although that will improve when the Corps, as part of the agreement with the society and Navy, moves the entrance checkpoint and adds parking.

Still, this gem of a place, still watching over the harbor, remains virtually unknown in the city. Until, perhaps, now.

Paul Clancy, paulclancy@msn.com, www.paulclancystories.com