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Photo courtesy of the Florida Division of Historical Resources.
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Built on Amelia Island at the entrance to St. Marys River as part of the third system of coastal fortifications, Fort Clinch was named for General Duncan Lamont Clinch, who served in the Second Seminole War. Although construction began in 1847, the fort still was unfinished when Confederates occupied it, unopposed, in 1861. Union forces captured the fort in 1862 and remained in control throughout the Civil War. The fort never was completed, in part because the development of rifled-barrel cannons rendered its masonry walls obsolete, and it was deactivated in 1867. During the Spanish-American War, the fort was reactivated for several months but abandoned again until the Civilian Conservation Corps restored it in the 1930s. In 1936, Fort Clinch became one of Florida's first state parks. The fort was in service one last time during World War II when the Coast Guard, Army, and Navy jointly operated a surveillance and communications post there.
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