Located in the Marin Headlands near a coastal inlet known as “Horseshoe Bay,” Fort Baker sits across San Francisco Bay from the Presidio of San Francisco. Thousands of cars pass by this scene destination annually, as it is also just moments away from the celebrated Golden Gate Bridge. But years before either Fort Baker ever existed, the Marin Headlands were inhabited for centuries by the people of the Miwok tribe. The area was sparsely populated for years thereafter, even after the Spanish began colonizing present-day California in the 1700s. Explorers and sailors still passed by the region on occasion though, as they guided their ships into the safety of San Francisco’s harbor. In fact, those Spanish mariners were among the first to give the area a name. One such sea captain actually began calling the locale “Punta de Caballo,” after he had watched herds of wild horses roam throughout the bluffs on a voyage in 1777. The title stuck and the Marin Headlands were referred to as the “Punta de Caballo” for generations. American settlers then began to anglicize the name as they flooded into California a century later, mispronouncing the “b” in “caballo” for a “v.” As such, the pioneers across the greater San Francisco area started calling the site “Cavallo Point.”

In the 1830s, most of the Marin Headlands—and the larger Marin Peninsula—were owned by William A. Richardson, an English mariner who moved to California as a young man the decade prior. Endearing himself with the local colonial governor, Richardson received a massive land grant that amounted to thousands of acres. He eventually created an estate called the “Rancho Sauselito” near the site of today’s City of Sausalito. Yet, the vicinity of the Marin Headlands largely remained a wilderness, even as the several communities sprang up further north. By this point, the country had just emerged out of a destructive civil war. In the wake of the conflict, the War Department began reviewing its coastal defense network on both sides of the continent. Over the next thirty years, military officers in Washington commissioned the development of numerous military installations across the United States. Among the areas it decided to develop was the Marin Headlands, which the federal government finally acquired in 1866. (President Millard Fillmore had originally tried to obtain the area in 1850, but lengthy litigation delayed the transfer for some time.) But the military did not break ground at the site until the end of the century, as war loomed on the horizon between America and Spain. The first coastal batteries appeared in the late 1890s, which covered the whole shoreline from Horseshoe Bay to the Bonita Channel. The batteries themselves were concrete bunkers that encased massive pieces of ordnance in a style that historians today refer to as “Endicott.” The War Department hoped that the cannons would protect all shipping traffic into the area in concert with the much larger Presidio of San Francisco directly across the Golden Gate.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the War Department had also started erecting a series of barracks and administrative buildings to serve the troops stationed at the defenses. Those new structures coalesced into individual military complexes that had control over select groups of batteries. The first base constructed was “Fort Baker” in 1901, which was followed almost a decade later by “Fort Barry.” The two installations operated together over the next 30 years, serving as the garrison for the soldiers of the Coastal Artillery Corps. A third base near Bonita Cove called “Fort Cronkhite” opened in 1941, after the War Department spent the previous two years creating it in anticipation of a massive military buildup. That event transpired just a few months afterward with the Attack on Pearl Harbor in December. The three bases mainly guarded the maritime approaches into the bay, via a new organization called the “Harbor Defense of San Francisco.” Over time, the coastal guns were replaced with anti-aircraft units, as the War Department determined that modern airpower had rendered conventional Endicott fortress useless. And toward the end of the conflict, the Sixth U.S. Army operated the headquarters of its Air Defense Command from inside Fort Baker. The Sixth U.S. Army was eventually replaced by the Sixth ARADCOM Region, which administered 12 permanent anti-aircraft missile silos scattered throughout the countryside. Yet, ARADOCM left in the 1970s, with the 91st Infantry Division taking its place. A veteran unit from World War II, the 91st Infantry Division had been changed into a reserve formation that mainly trained new recruits for service in the Army National Guard, the Army Reserve Combat Support, and the Combat Service Support.

When the Cold War finally wound down in the 1980s, Congress began assessing the relevance of the nation’s many military bases. As such, it determined to shut down all three forts over the span of the next decade. All of the ordinance was either relocated and destroyed, and the members of the 91st Infantry Division moved to Camps Parks on the other side of San Francisco Bay. In 1995, the federal government ultimately decided to give all three installations to the National Park Service to operate as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Congress has originally created the destination in 1972, in order to make the national parks more accessible to people living in crowded metropolitan communities. All three forts were thus added to the 75,000 acres of land that constituted the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Today, the remnants of the three bases serve as historical attractions within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, alongside the likes of the Muir Woods National Monument, the Presidio of San Francisco, and even the famous Alcatraz Island. The U.S. Department of the Interior has even listed all three installations on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places as a historic district called “Forts Baker, Barry, and Cronkhite.”

When the War Department began creating Fort Baker at the beginning of the 20th century, it endeavored to use Colonial Revival-style architecture as its primary source of inspiration. Conventional American military thought called for the greater care of the nation’s soldiers. The War Department thus endeavored to create accommodating, technologically advanced barracks for its men to use. The structures at Fort Baker was no exception to the rule, including the unique buildings that currently constitute today’s Cavallo Point. The War Department had specifically hoped that Colonial Revival architecture would make the soldiers feel as if they were still at home. Colonial Revival architecture itself was also the most widely used building form in the entire United States at the time. It reached its zenith at the height of the Gilded Age, where countless Americans turned to the aesthetic to celebrate what they feared was America’s disappearing past. The movement came about in the aftermath of the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, in which people from across the country traveled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to commemorate the American Revolution. Many of the exhibitors chose to display cultural representations of 18th-century America, encouraging millions of people across the country to preserve the nation’s history. Architects were among those inspired, who looked to revitalize the design principles of colonial English and Dutch homes. This gradually gave way to a larger embrace of Georgian and Federal-style architecture, which focused exclusively on the country’s formative years. As such, structures built in the style of Colonial Revival architecture featured such components as pilasters, brickwork, and modest, double-hung windows. Symmetrical designs defined Colonial Revival-style façades, anchored by a central, pedimented front door and simplistic portico. Gable roofs typically topped the buildings, although hipped and gambrel forms were used, as well. This building form remained immensely popular for years until largely petering out in late-20th century. Nevertheless, architects today still rely upon Colonial Revival architecture, using the form to construct all kinds of residential buildings and commercial complexes.

The Enforcer (1976)

Star Trek: Enterprise (2001 – 2005)

The Amazing Race 2 (2002)