Fort Jefferson is one of the central features of the seven small "Dry Tortugas Islands" in the Gulf of Mexico. Fort Jefferson constructed between 1845 and 1876, Fort Jefferson named after the third President Thomas Jefferson, and Fort Jefferson is a 19th-century third system coastal fortification that occupies the majority of Garden Key in the remote Dry Tortugas National Park in the Florida Keys. Nearly thirty years in the making, Fort Jefferson was never finished nor fully armed. The largest masonry structure in the Americas, and it is made-up of over 16 million bricks. The design called for a four-tiered six-sided 1000 heavy-gun fort, with two sides measuring 415 feet, and four sides measuring 564 feet. It was named Dry Tortugas because there is no fresh water. The fort is located on Bush Key later called Garden Key in the lower Florida Keys within the Dry Tortugas National Park. In 1825 Spain sold these Islands to United States for $5 million.
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After the Civil War, the fort was used as a federal prison, while the most frequent transgression for the civilian prisoners was robbery. In July 1865 four special civilian prisoners arrived. These were Dr. Samuel Mudd, Edmund Spangler, Samuel Arnold, and Michael O'Laughlen, who had been convicted of conspiracy in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. The most famous prisoner was Dr. Samuel Mudd, the physician who set the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth. Construction of Fort Jefferson was still under way when Dr. Mudd and his fellow prisoners arrived, Mudd provided much-praised medical care during a yellow fever epidemic at the fort in 1867, which killed many prisoners including O'Laughlen, and was eventually pardoned by President Andrew Johnson and released. By 1888, the military usefulness of Fort Jefferson had waned, and the cost of maintaining the fort due to the effects of frequent hurricanes and the corrosive and debilitating tropical climate could no longer be justified. In 1888, the Army turned the fort over to the Marine Hospital Service to be operated as a quarantine station.
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In January 4, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who visited the area by ship, designated the area as Fort Jefferson National Monument. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 10, 1970. On October 26, 1992 the Dry Tortugas, including Fort Jefferson, was established as a National Park.
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