Children under 16 are free if accompanied by an adult. A small museum features an eight-minute film about the fort and the area's history. To get to the fort itself, it is necessary to take a ferry, since the fort is on Rattlesnake Island. A park ranger accompanies each ferry and gives a short tour. The entire trip to the fort lasts about 45 minutes.
Admission is free.
They are the forts of the First Coast. There are four of them, ranging south from Fernandina Beach to Crescent Beach. The fourth fort, Fort Clinch in Fernandina Beach, was built, beginning in 1847, as part of the coastal defenses of the United States. It saw its only real military action during the Civil War when it was first occupied by the Confederates in 1861, then by the Union in 1862. Fort Caroline, on a bluff overlooking the St. Johns River in east Arlington, is a reconstruction of the stockade occupied by French settlers in 1564-65.