FSC-2017 Fort DuPont State Park Traditional Cache
Drew136: The permit has expired. Time to open up the spot for a new cache.
FSC-2017 Fort DuPont State Park
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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This cache was originally placed for the 9th annual First State Challenge!
FSC-2017 was sponsored by Delaware Geocaching!
Although the challenge has ended, this cache is still available to be found!
FSC-2017 Fort DuPont State Park
Cache Details:
Park is open from 8AM to sunset.
A park entrance fee is charged daily from March 1 to November 30. This fee allows your vehicle and its passengers to enter any Delaware State Park on the date of purchase, except for Fort Delaware, Fenwick State Line Beach and the Brandywine Zoo. For Inland Parks the fee is $4 for Delaware registered vehicles and $8 for out-of-state vehicles.
Description:
Excerpted from www.fortdupont.org – Author unknown:
Named after Rear Adm. Samuel Francis Du Pont, the former military post is situated on the Reedy Point tract, land originally granted to Henry Ward in 1675. Fort DuPont originated during the Civil War as a heavily armed earthwork fortification. In 1864, Sgt Bishop Crumrine wrote, “these guns command the channel and could blow to atoms any vessel rash enough to attempt to pass.” In the decades to follow, “the battery at Delaware City” was gradually modernized into a formidable military post remaining active through World War II. Declared surplus, the site reopened in 1948 as the Governor Bacon Health Center. By 1996, over three-hundred acres was reestablished as Fort DuPont State Park.
In 1864, Lt. Col. Henry Brewerton’s plans for a Ten Gun Battery became reality. It was a pentagonal redoubt-style structure almost 250 feet in width. The fortification included a heavily reinforced magazine, parade ground, kitchen, and quarters. The earthen and frame construction complete with trench and palisade was more resilient to the new rifled cannon fire than its masonry predecessors. Six ten-inch Rodman guns and four fifteen-inch guns were installed, some which were capable of firing a 300-pound projectile over 2.5 miles.
By 1870, the battery was abandoned for a new twenty-gun emplacement. But the plans never saw completion and by the turn of the century a new generation of fortification was imminent.
While the time between World War I and World War II saw a decrease in active military preparation, Fort DuPont still played a critical role in coastal defense. The new age of air warfare changed the face of coastal artillery, with defenses of the Delaware Bay moving south and with greater range of fire. The only remaining armament at Fort DuPont consisted of eight mortars, and the 3-inch guns of Battery Elder. The primary defense of the Delaware now consisted of two pairs of 12-inch guns on long-range carriages at Fort Saulsbury in Milford. Fort DuPont’s role was that of a secondary line of defense.
The post then took shape as a location for training army engineers. The 1st Engineer Regiment arrived in 1922, and was led by Col. Ulysses S. Grant III during the early 1930’s. Training included reserve engineer units as well as the Citizens Military Training Camps.
During World War II, Fort DuPont’s role changed not only physically, but also in purpose. Large numbers of temporary, or ‘mobilization’ buildings were quickly erected. Fort DuPont was a key training post for skills including combat, communication, chemical warfare, and even baking.
In addition, the post also assumed a new role as prisoner of war camp. Nearly 3,000 captured German soldiers from Rommel’s Afrika Korps campaign as well as Italian soldiers were imprisoned in repurposed buildings, where they assisted the American war effort in the farm fields and on the post.
In the war’s aftermath, Fort DuPont was declared surplus property and turned over to the state. The Governor Bacon Health Center was established in 1948 by the state, utilizing the brick barracks buildings as well as some of the houses and service buildings. Most of the frame mobilization buildings that were hastily constructed in wartime were torn down. The 285 total buildings that existed in 1943 have now dwindled to less than 80.
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