Fort Knox, Maine

Fort Knox, now Fort Knox State Park or Fort Knox State Historic Site, is located on the western bank of the Penobscot River in the town of Prospect, Maine, about 5 miles (8.0 km) from the mouth of the river. Built between 1844 and 1869, it was the first fort in Maine built entirely of granite; most previous forts used wood, earth, and stone. It is named after Major General Henry Knox, the first U.S. Secretary of War and Commander of Artillery during the American Revolutionary War, who at the end of his life lived not far away in Thomaston. As a virtually intact example of a mid-19th century granite coastal fortification, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969 and declared a National Historic Landmark on December 30, 1970. Fort Knox also serves as the entry site for the observation tower of the Penobscot Narrows Bridge that opened to the public in 2007.

Text adapted from “Fort Knox (Maine)” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fort Knox, Maine ranks #2,097 of 3,708 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #47 of the 50 mapped in United States. Founded 1844, it is older than 10% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 263 atlas entries founded in the 19th century. See how United States compares in the castle statistics.

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