A View of Lake and Fort Ontario

Kojak and Moose - Rescue Labs

As we are dogsitting for the two lovely dogs in the picture above, we are in Rochester New York for a few more days. This Sunday we took a drive east on Lake Ontario. It was a gorgeous (albeit HOT) day.

This is the view of Lake Ontario from the banks.

We drove up to a town called Oswego, where Fort Ontario is. We visited the Fort, now a historical site. The history is interesting.

First it was a fort the British established a decade or so before the American Revolution. It was designed to protect the region during the French and Indian War.  During the  Revolutionary War, the British  marched from New York City to Albany to Oswego in the drive to get to the interior. The y retook the fort and the British didn't return the fort to the Americans until a decade after the Revolution was won.

It was expanded and reinforced during the war of 1812, although wasn't used much at all.

After the Civil War, it was turned into a station for many of the injured Union Soldiers. It is this period that has been recreated in the current park.

Officers had housing inside the berm

Between World Wars I and II, it was a base for an Army battalion and one of the larger military hospitals in the country. During this time many many out buildings were put up to handle the military, the officers and their wives and the infirmed.

After World War II, this complex was the largest place to help process and relocate the survivors, mainly Jewish survivors, of the German concentration camps. Thousands were processed and rehabilitated here in the hospital and surrounding buildings.

Most out buildings are gone now, but these remain as Civic Centers.

When this action completed successfully, the fort was decommissioned in 1947.