The nonprofit Friends of Fort Gorges has been awarded $5,000 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation to help fund a preservation plan.
The fort, which sits just off Portland in Casco Bay, was built as a response to the War of 1812, but construction didn’t start until 1858.
After a century and a half much of the fort has fallen into disrepair, but efforts are being made to preserve the unique edifice, which is short, six-sided and sports several dozen relatively small rectangular openings.
The project is intended to provide baseline information for the fort’s master plan, including such things as mortar analysis, history and preservation philosophy and 3D scanning to create a benchmark.
“We’ll be able to take this scan, which will be accurate to millimeters, and go back 6 months from now or a year from now and measure certain spots that are now in decay, and we’ll be able to figure out what sort of deterioration is occurring,” says Friends of Fort Gorges Executive Director Paul Drinan.
Drinan says there are concerns that the fort could be lost, but that if action is taken soon enough, it can be saved.
No shots were ever fired from any of the 34 10-inch guns brought into the fort, which continues to be a prominent feature of Portland Harbor.
