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This isn't an official website for Fort De Soto Park. It was first created in the 1990's, in the days when Pinellas county had barely heard of things like the Internet and websites. Some people have found this site to be interesting or helpful, so the site lives on.

Fort De Soto is located in the southwest corner of Mullet Key, at the entrance to Tampa Bay. The entire island is now Fort De Soto Park, a Pinellas county park which offers fine beaches, fishing, nature trails, camping, boating, and much more.

Click here for a map of the area. Use the controls at the top, left side of the map to zoom and alter the view.

Fort De Soto has the only four 12-inch seacoast rifled mortars (model 1890 mounted on 1896 carriages) in the continental United States. Also at the fort are two 6-inch Armstrong rapid-fire rifled guns (model 1898) which were originally mounted at Fort Dade, and are the last two guns of that model year in the United States.

Much has happened on this tiny island:

• it was once inhabited by Tocobaga Indians and visited by Spanish explorers
  
• it was surveyed by Robert E. Lee before the civil war
  
• during the Civil War, Union troops had a detachment on both Egmont and Mullet Keys. Union ships were looking for blockade runners
  
• in 1898, the year of the Spanish-American war, the construction of the fort began
  
• during WWII the island was used for bombing practice by the pilot who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima;
  

Ironically, Fort De Soto was never the site of any major battle, and the weapons of Fort De Soto and Fort Dade were never fired in anger at an enemy. However, it played a significant part in the evolution of modern weaponry. In 1977 Fort De Soto was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Take a walk along the southwest tip of the island where the post buildings were located, or climb to the top of Battery Laidley and look out over the area. Imagine the area at the turn of the century and think of the hardships the troops faced-- mosquitoes, heat, and isolation.