Castillo San Felipe del Morro

Castillo San Filipe del Morro, also known as Fuerte San Felipe del Morro or Castillo del Morro, is a 16th-century citadel. It was designed to guard the entrance to the San Juan Bay, and defend the Spanish colonial port city of San Juan from seaborne enemies.

The Spanish established a colony in Puerto Rico in 1508, before long conflicts arose with the native Taino community and later with the Caribes, leading the Spaniards to build fortified houses to protect supplies and provide refuge for citizens. By the 1530’s threats to the colony came from privateers and pirates seeking the wealth flowing in and out of the island. The battery and tower built in the 1500s to protect the harbor would become the basis for Castillo San Felipe del Morro. During the 1800s the light house was added to guide ships into the harbor. In the late 1800s when Spain’s fortunes began to decline, San Juan’s defenses were very slow to modernize. As tensions with the United States increased Spain rushed to install modern artillery guns to the fort, but by the time war broke out only 11 were installed. When the United States entered WWII the defenses were modernized with the addition of bombproof command bunkers, observation towers, and gun emplacements to protect the port.

source: sanjuanpuertoreco.com

A "field-of-fire", up to 70 acres, known as the esplanade,

could be dominated by cannon in the 17th and 18th centuries during attack.

Guards at the entrance.

A guerite, an overhanging, wall-mounted turret projecting from the walls of late medieval 

and early-modern fortifications from the early 14th century up to the 18th century.

A ramp used to transport cannons from one level to the next.

        

The largest fortification built by the Spaniards in the Americas, El Morro had 450 cannons.

        

        

We wondered through hallways and stairways and rampways;

into a kitchen, a chapel, barracks for soldiers, and officer quarters.

A lighthouse was built atop the citadel in 1843, but was destroyed during the 1898 bombardment of the city by the United States;
it was replaced by the US military with the current lighthouse in 1908.

    

overall source: wikipedia