Battery Godfrey

Battery Godfrey

Beginning at the Golden Gate Bridge toll plaza and extending southward along the bluffs at the northwestern edge of the Presidio of San Francisco are five post-Endicott Board (1885) seacoast defense batteries. They include some of the earliest Endicott-type artillery defenses of San Francisco Bay. When begun, and for some time after completion, these batteries remained unnamed, and during construction were known simply by emplacement numbers assigned by the New York Board of Engineers in preparing the first Endicott-type plan for San Francisco Bay in 1890. The defenses of San Francisco were nationally second in priority, preceded only by those of New York Harbor. Sequentially the first five emplacements were to be five 10-inch guns mounted on the bluff above Fort Point. These were never built. Early in 1892 excavation began for emplacements 14, 15 and 16 of the 1890 plan, to mount three 12-inch rifles on barbette carriages. Three old magazines of Battery West dating from the 1870s were broken up to be embedded in the new concrete, but four others were left intact Battery Godfrey was finished in 1896, the first Endicott-type battery to be completed in the defenses of San Francisco Bay. 

Battery Godfrey

Battery Godfrey

Battery Godfrey

Battery Godfrey

Battery Godfrey

Battery Godfrey

Battery Godfrey

Battery Godfrey

Battery Godfrey