Battery Langdon — Attraction in Florida

Battery Langdon was a part of Fort Pickens, part of the harbor defense of Pensacola, and was built in 1917. Later on the battery was casemated. The battery was operational until 1947, when it was deactivated. It contained two 12" guns.

Nowadays the battery is open to the public, but all 5 entrances are locked and sealed shut. To describe more about it...It was originally built as a World War I concrete coastal gun battery with two 12" M1895MI-A4 guns mounted on M1917-A2 carriages. (Look up those guns if you're curious to see what those may have looked like). This place was a single story battery with the guns located on open concrete gun pads on the same level as the common magazine and support structure between them. The common magazine and support structure was an earth covered reinforced concrete building that contained shell rooms, powder rooms, a power plant, plotting rooms and personnel facilities. Shells were moved from the magazine to the gun loading platform by shot carts. No shell or powder hoists were provided or needed. And to say a little more ... At the beginning of World War 2, a decision to casemate most of the 12" open pad Barbette mounted batteries was taken to protect the guns and crews from long range ship and aircraft bombardment. Battery Langdon was selected to be casemated and work began on November 1st, 1942. The casemates and supporting magazine structure were massive reinforced concrete structures with 10' thick walls and 17' thick overhead concrete ceilings. The central structure between the two casemates housed shell and powder rooms as well as plotting rooms and fire control infrastructure. The casemates were completed on 31 July 1943 and accepted for service on 21 Jun 1943. The Harbor Defenses of Pensacola were declared surplus in May 1947 and the guns and carriages of Battery Langdon were scrapped during June...

I've gone there 4 or 5 times with my family and/or friends. By itself, it is only an old hold for a huge cannon that was used in WWI to defend the bay. You cannot go inside, but climbing all over was a lot of fun - you can see so far! There are a lot of plants growing on it - many types of flowers, cacti, bushes, etc. There is a cave in the back (towards the top) that we crawled into and took pictures. We even followed an armadillo around it taking...

Pretty neat spot to stop at and get a few to the area. It's an underrated stopping point, and not a lot of people will be here. Behind this area is a barbecue and picnic area, so if you bring the materials you could probably have a pretty...