page_title: Fort Andrews
section_title: Fire Control Structures
hierarchical_section_title: Fort Andrews / Fire Control Structures
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a plan of the so-called East Side fire control building at Ft. Andrews, completed in 1904. The plan was drawn in about 1944, when the Army was planning to splinterproof the structure. On the second floor, the observing room was in front (to the left) and the room in back was (in 1904) a plotting room. The elevation A-A clearly shows the huge octagonal concrete pillar that ran from 3 ft. deep under ground up to the second floor observation room. This pillar had a depression position finder mounted on top of it, at an observing height of 113.94 ft. The site itself was 90.9 ft. above mean low water. The plan also shows two less substantial pillars in the observing room, likely for azimuth telescopes used in spotting the fall of fire. In many other fire control towers of this period (such as ones at Ft. Strong (Long Island) and Ft. Warren (Georges Island) in Boston harbor), all that remains (in 2010) of the old structures are the massive concrete pillars for the instruments; the wood, plaster-walled, or brick buildings themselves have long since fallen apart. This is also the case with the collapsed 1907 twin observation station on the westerly hill at Fort Andrews.
context_page_description: Fort Andrews was created in 1897 as part of the Coast Defenses of Boston, Massachusetts. Construction began in 1898 and the fort was substantially complete by 1904. The fort was named after Major General George Leonard Andrews, an engineer and Civil War commander, who assisted in the construction of nearby Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. It occupies the entire northeast end of Peddocks Island in Boston Harbor, and was originally called the Peddocks Island Military Reservation. Once an active Coast Artillery post, it was manned by hundreds of soldiers and bristled with mortars and guns that controlled the southern approaches to Boston and Quincy Bay. The fort also served as a prisoner-of-war camp for Italian prisoners during World War II, who were employed as laborers following the Italian surrender to the Allies in 1943. Today, the fort is abandoned, and is managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, as part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area.
context_section_description: Ft. Andrews is unusual in the number of different types of fire control structures it has. These were to house the evolving Coast Artillery fire control system.  These were constructed beginning in 1904, with new structures built through World War II.
  The oldest fire control structure at the fort is the so-called East Side fire control building, completed in 1904. Its position (42.301185°N 70.928462°W), 100 ft. high on the hill to the northeast of the parade ground, gave it a commanding view of the southern harbor channels and out to sea. This structure originally contained a vertical base end station for Battery McCook, as well as observation instruments for the Commander of the fort and a plotting room. 
  A second east side fire control station was the coincidence range finder (CRF) station that was located (42.301715°N 70.929545°W)in a blockhouse constructed in 1925 on the gun platform for Gun #1 of Battery Rice, a 5-inch battery built in the early 20th century but for which the guns were never delivered. This small (13-foot square) structure housed a Barr and Stroud CRF device that, with a length of 9 ft., must have made for very cramped quarters.
  The third fire control station on the east side, also built in 1925, was the small pillbox that housed a second depression position finder (DPF) for Battery McCook. The position of this emplacement (42.302381°N 70.930062°W), about 350 ft. northwest of the battery, near the lip of the tall northern bluffs of the island, gave it a commanding view over toward Ft. Warren on Georges Island and the surrounding channels into Boston.
  Atop the tall hill on the west side of the parade ground were two more stations. In 1944, a single-story concrete bunker was built to house base end station #1 for Battery McCook. Located at a height of 128 feet above sea level (42.298989°N 70.931764°W), this structure housed a depression position finder (DPF). Today, the structure is thickly overgrown with trees and brush, but during World War II controlled burns kept the brow of the hill clear of obstructions.
  The final fire control structure is a two-bay wood and plaster building that was 40 ft. long overall, constructed in 1907, and had dual observation platforms and plotting rooms for mortar batteries Whitman and Cushing, northwest of the parade ground. Located (42.299118°N 70.931906°W) about 80 ft. northwest of the 1944 bunker described above, this building has now collapsed under the weight of fallen trees, and its remaining walls are shaky. The building was built in a 15 ft. deep pit, with only its observation windows likely projecting above ground level, and today (in 2010) this renders it almost invisible until a visitor is virtually on the edge of the pit. The ruins are significant for being the only remains of one of the early wood and plaster fire control buildings that were so prevalent throughout Boston's harbor defenses in the period 1905-1925.
caption: World War II-era Elevation and plans for the 1904 East Side station.
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