Fort San Felipe del Morro

fuerte-san-felipe-del-mor­ro

When you arrive at Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro you will enter through a con­crete bridge that goes over the dry moat.  In colo­nial times this used to be a draw bride, which pro­tect­ed the east­ern side of the fort.  Attack­ing forces arriv­ing from the east would’ve been met by a dry moat that would have forced them to descend before attempt­ing to climb the fort’s walls.

This gave the Span­ish forces sev­er­al advan­tages.  First, the moat would have pro­tect­ed the base of the fort walls from ene­my canon fire, some­thing that nev­er occurred.  Sec­ond­ly, after climb­ing down into the moat, the attack­ing foot sol­diers would’ve become sit­ting ducks for the Span­ish forces.

Vis­it­ing Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro used to be free, but sev­er­al years ago the Nation­al Park Ser­vice decid­ed to charge a small fee to help cov­er the fort’s main­te­nance and ongo­ing restora­tion.  The $3 entrance is more than rea­son­able and if your plan­ning to vis­it Fort San Cristóbal –which we strong­ly rec­om­mend– you can get a $5 tick­et that’s good for both forts dur­ing a 7‑day period.

Enter­ing Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro is like tak­ing a step back in his­to­ry.  Once you pass the fort’s mas­sive entrance you’ll find your­self in the main court­yard and you’ll see a tun­nel shaped ramp that leads down­ward towards the San­ta Bar­bara battery.

Imme­di­ate­ly to the right of the tun­nel shaped ramp there’s a small con­ces­sion stand with all kinds of books and mem­o­ra­bil­ia about the forts, Old San Juan and Puer­to Rico.  On the left side, there’s a small pro­jec­tion room with an audio­vi­su­al pre­sen­ta­tion that cov­ers the city walls and forts.  The pro­gram is avail­able in Eng­lish or Span­ish dur­ing reg­u­lar park hours.

Now you’ll have to make a deci­sion.  Are you going to explore the fort from the top down or from the bot­tom up.  Per­son­al­ly, I pre­fer to go from the bot­tom up because you’ll be less tired at the begin­ning, which is when you’ll be doing most of the climbing.

Now that we have that out the way, lets start down the tun­nel shaped ramp towards the San­ta Bar­bara bat­tery lev­el.  Once again, if you have chil­dren in your par­ty, please hold them tight­ly while you walk down the steps.  DO NOT attempt to walk down the cen­ter ramp.  On missed step and you’ll roll down the ramp like a Span­ish can­non ball.  By the way, this ramp was called the main artillery ramp and it was used to move can­nons weigh­ing up to 10,000 pounds and oth­er mil­i­tary equip­ment using a sophis­ti­cat­ed rope and pul­ley sys­tem called a “block and tackle”.

Once you reach the San­ta Bar­bara bat­tery lev­el you take the next stair­case lead­ing down towards the low­er patio. Right next to the base of this stair­case you will find a pas­sage­way on your left that leads to anoth­er down­ward ramp.  This ramp leads to the orig­i­nal 1539 tow­er that today is cov­ered by the San­ta Bar­bara bat­tery.  After walk­ing down this ramp you’ll be stand­ing under the dome of orig­i­nal tow­er, which has sev­er­al inter­est­ing fea­tures of its own.  Look­ing to your left you will see yet anoth­er ramp that leads to the water-lev­el Water Bat­tery Area.  The artillery in this bat­tery would shoot red-hot canon balls at the water­line of ene­my ships.  The enor­mous force of these pro­jec­tiles, and the high tem­per­a­ture at which they were fired, would pierce the ship’s hull, start a fire and allow the sea to pour in.

At the oppo­site end of the tow­er you’ll see the closed off long­holes from the orig­i­nal struc­ture.  Sen­tries guard­ing the tow­er could shoot their mus­kets and retreat through the nar­row tun­nel, were they would reload safe­ly under cover.

On the upper right quad­rant of the tow­er dome there is still anoth­er piece of his­to­ry from the fort’s tur­bu­lent past.  But in this case it’s a real piece.  If you look care­ful­ly you’ll see a met­al frag­ment stick­ing out of the dome struc­ture.  On May 12, 1898, a month after the Unit­ed States declared war on Spain, a US naval squadron com­mand­ed by Admi­ral William T. Samp­son attacked the city of San Juan for close to three hours.  El Morro’s defens­es were hit with sev­er­al hun­dred shells, one of which pierced the orig­i­nal tow­er dome.

After walk­ing back up the ramp you’ll arrive at the low­er patio.  Look­ing direct­ly under the stair­case you will see two large arch­es direct­ly below the main artillery ramp.  The one on the left was the fort’s kitchen and the one on the right was the forge.  On the oppo­site side of patio are the case­mates or gun­rooms. The guns in these rooms point­ed straight out to sea and their mis­sion was to shoot at the hulls and decks of ene­my ships.  Their enclosed nature made them prac­ti­cal­ly indestructible.

At the cen­ter of the low­er patio there’s a cir­cu­lar stair­case that leads to the third lev­el.  If you wish, you can go up this stair­case or you can use the wider one that you took on the way down.  Either way, you will find your­self right next to the San­ta Bar­bara Battery.

Sev­er­al years ago you could still see one of the orig­i­nal breech-load­ing rifled guns that defend­ed el Mor­ro against ene­my attack­ers.  Now the San­ta Bar­bara Bat­tery is only a con­crete promon­to­ry were you’ll have an excel­lent view of the San Juan de la Cruz fort, sit­ting across de bay.

Stand­ing at the San­ta Bar­bara Bat­tery with you back towards the sea you will notice the V‑shaped design of Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro.  On both sides you will see the emp­ty open­ings were the fort’s guns used to sit.

Walk­ing towards your left along the third lev­el gun area you will find anoth­er cir­cu­lar stair­case that leads to the fourth lev­el Car­men bat­tery, which sup­port­ed the San­ta Bar­bara bat­tery.  These guns point­ed towards the entire west­ern sec­tor of Old San Juan.

Direct­ly across the Car­men Bat­tery there’s a small ramp that goes up around the fort’s light­house to the Ochoa half-bas­tion and the Aus­tria half-bas­tion.  Both half bas­tions are linked togeth­er by a straight wall that sits direct­ly over the fort entrance.  This entire area pro­tect­ed the rear side of the fort in the event of a land attack.

When exit­ing El Mor­ro you’ll prob­a­bly be struck by the bar­ren appear­ance of the fort grounds.  The Spaniards called this a glacis and the pur­pose was to deny attack­ing forces any pos­si­ble cov­er from the fort’s gun­ners and musketeers.

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