Fort Crockett, Coastal military fortification in Galveston, United States.
Fort Crockett is a former military base on Galveston's coast located at the intersection of 53rd Street and Seawall Boulevard. The grounds still display several concrete fortifications and structures from its active military years.
A US Army Coast Artillery Corps facility was established on Galveston Island in the late 1890s, and construction was disrupted by the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900. The Army Corps of Engineers rebuilt and expanded it, and in 1903 it was named Fort Crockett after David Crockett, hero of the Alamo. In World War I it trained artillery troops bound for France; in World War II a large gun battery was added and the fort held German POWs.
The name, chosen in 1903, honours David Crockett, the Tennessee congressman and Alamo defender. The former barracks now house the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Laboratory and the Texas Institute of Oceanography, alongside Texas A&M facilities; Texas A&M's marine lab arrived in 1958 and the Texas Maritime Academy took over the largest building in 1963.
Battery Hoskins' casemates stand on the grounds of the San Luis Resort, built over and behind them in the early 1980s. The concrete emplacements are visible from the seawall highway along Galveston Beach; one now carries a swimming pool on top, the other a wedding gazebo. Approach from Seawall Boulevard, where the structures read clearly from the road.
The two 12-inch gun emplacements of Battery Hoskins were so massive in concrete that removing them proved uneconomical. The San Luis Resort was built on and behind the battery in the early 1980s; one emplacement now carries a swimming pool on top, the other a wedding gazebo, and both remain visible from the seawall highway.
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