Fort Moore

Fort Moore was the second of two historic U.S. Military Forts in Los Angeles, California, during the Mexican–American War. It lay straight above the junction of the Hollywood Freeway and Broadway Avenue, on an historic hill that once sheltered the old Plaza.

The landmark hill took its name, Fort Hill, from the first fort, and the hill afforded sweeping views of the old adobe town and the vineyards in the swale of the Los Angeles River. Fort Hill was a spur of the ridge that runs from the Quarry Hills (Elysian Park) southward to Beaudry’s Bunker Hill; it originally stretched east between 1st Street and Ord Street. In old photographs, it forms a backdrop just behind the Plaza Church and square. By 1949, what was left of the hill under the fort was cut down when the Hollywood Freeway was put through.

The fort is now memorialized by the Fort Moore Pioneer Memorial, a stone mural on Hill Street, along the south side of Grand Arts High School.

Mexican–American War

On August 13, 1846, early in the conflict, U.S. naval forces under Commodore Robert F. Stockton arrived at Los Angeles and raised the American flag without opposition. A small occupying force of 50 Marines, under Captain Archibald H. Gillespie, built a rudimentary barricade on what was then known as Fort Hill overlooking the small town.