By Jack Tracy and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society
“Sausalito's closest and oldest neighbor is the United States Army,” wrote Jack Tracy in his 1983 book, Moments in Time. Tracy then went on to detail the military history of this area:
PHOTO FROM MOMENTS IN TIME
The guardhouse at Fort Baker, c. 1905, with soldiers of the 68th Company of Coast Artillery.
Shortly after California was seized from Mexico in 1846, it became apparent that a permanent military garrison was needed in San Francisco Bay. After all, a mere handful of Americans under Fremont had had no difficulty capturing the all-but-abandoned Presidio. The bay was defenseless against a determined aggressor. Other nations watched with keen interest as the United States attempted to hold the vast new territory with a thin thread of military occupation bravely called the "Tenth Military Department," assisted by the United States Naval Squadron on the Pacific Ocean.
The chaos resulting from the gold rush again demonstrated the glaring need for a strong military presence as hundreds of ships from many nations sailed through the Golden Gate. In the early l850s a defense plan was mapped out, and Congress appropriated funds for the project. Key points around the bay would be taken or purchased, and permanent artillery batteries installed. The U.S. Army occupied the Presidio in San Francisco and built new fortifications at the site of the old Mexican castillo at Punta del Cantil Blanco (white cliff point), which would be called Fort Winfield Scott (later to become Fort Point). At Punta de San Jose it built Fort Mason, named in 1882 for the second military governor of California, Col. Richard Barnes Mason. Alcatraz and Angel Island were also occupied by the military. Only the north shore of the Golden Gate remained unprotected.
The Army negotiated with William Richardson in 1854 for the Marin headlands, including Punta de San Carlos, now called Lime Point after the rocks' most obvious characteristic, a coating of bird guano. (The Americans were far less elegant in selecting place names than were the Spanish or Mexicans.) After Richardson turned over the affairs of Rancho del Sausalito to Samuel Throckmorton in 1855, Throckmorton offered 1,899 acres of Lime Point to the Army for $200,000. Congress felt that the price was exorbitant and initiated a period of negotiations and litigations with Throckmorton that lasted ten years. After the Civil War, during which not a shot was fired from Bay Area fortifications, Congress cooled on the idea of coastal fortifications. Throckmorton, sensing his opportunity might be slipping away, quickly reduced the asking price and in 1866 sold the entire headlands for $125,000 to the United States government.
Plans slowly got under way for construction of an artillery battery at Gravelly Beach (later Kirby Cove) on the newly acquired military reservation. Only two of the twelve planned gun emplacements were ever built, and in 1873 a single gun, a fifteen-inch smoothbore Rodman, was installed. For the next fifteen years, that gun and the rusty old fog signal cannon at Point Bonita were the only protection for the north shore of the Golden Gate. In 1897 a permanent fort was established at Horseshoe Cove, east of Gravelly Beach, consisting of two wooden barracks towed on barges from the Presidio, and a guardhouse, corral, and stables—all built on site. Named in honor of Col. Edward Dickinson Baker, who was killed in the Civil War, the new post was manned by Battery I, 3rd Artillery, U.S. Army, transferred from Fort McDowell on Angel Island.
For the next ten years Fort Baker grew at a steady pace. Lessons learned by Admiral Dewey at Manila Bay in 1898 demonstrated the importance of modern coastal defenses. New shore batteries were installed, and a road graded around Yellow Bluff to Sausalito, thereby making the fort accessible by land as well as by sea. The marshy beach was filled and seeded to become a parade ground; trees were planted, sewers and water mains laid; and brick barracks, a powerhouse, and splendid Victorian officers' quarters were built.
During WWI and WWII Fort Baker served as the headquarters and training command post for the newly formed 91st Division (United States) Army. In the late 1980's the fort became an army reserve training facility/resource called the 91st Training Division. According to the website https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/fort-baker.htm: “In 1995, the military transferred its land to Golden Gate National Recreation Area and in 2000, the last soldiers left Fort Baker as the 91st Division (Training Support) moved their activities to Camp Parks, California.”
Today, Fort Baker is the home of Cavallo Point Lodge, famous for its world class views, its gourmet Murray Circle restaurant and Farley Bar, named after Phil Frank’s beloved cartoon character. The soldiers who were stationed there are now just a distant memory.