Fort Andrews

Fort Andrews was created in 1897 as part of the Coast Defenses of Boston, Massachusetts. It occupies the entire northeast end of Peddocks Island in Boston Harbor. Once an active Coast Artillery post, it was manned by hundreds of soldiers and bristled with mortars and guns that controlled the southern approaches to Boston and Quincy Bay. Today, the fort is abandoned, and is managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, as part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. The fort was named after Maj. Gen. George Leonard Andrews, an engineer and Civil War commander, who assisted in the construction of Fort Warren in Boston Harbor.

By the 1920s, Fort Andrews consisted of some 30 structures (see map at left, below), ranging from large brick barracks buildings that housed over 100 soldiers each to elegant officers' quarters and a 50-bed hospital. The fort even had a radio transmitting station, one of the Army's earliest.

Fort Andrews was one of two forts of this size in Boston Harbor, the other being Fort Strong, on Long Island, and after the demolition of almost all of Fort Strong's wooden structures in about 2005 to make way for a children's camp, Fort Andrews is now the sole survivor of its type in Massachusetts.