{"id":1088,"slug":"pensacola-pass-florida","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Pensacola Pass is the gap four empires fortified — the entrance to the finest deep-water harbor on the Gulf, where Spain, France, Britain, and the United States all built to control the same mile of water between Santa Rosa Island and the mainland. The Americans made it a fortress triangle: Pickens on the island tip, McRee on the western shore, Barrancas on the bluff — the pass guarded by three sets of guns that could crossfire anything entering the bay.","The pass watched the war arrive early. In January 1861 — three months before Sumter — Florida militia demanded Fort Barrancas; Lieutenant Adam Slemmer spiked the guns, dumped the powder in the bay, and slipped his garrison across the channel to Fort Pickens. For a year the harbor stood divided — Union Pickens staring across the pass at Confederate Barrancas and McRee, the guns aimed at each other across the same water they'd been built to defend.","The standoff broke in October 1861 — Bragg sent a thousand men across to raid the Union camp on Santa Rosa Island, the first significant engagement in Florida — and ended the next spring when the Confederates burned the navy yard and left for New Orleans. Fort Pickens never fell — one of only four southern forts held by the Union for the entire war. The pass kept its guns into the twentieth century — the coastal artillery era's batteries still stud Santa Rosa and Perdido Key, the channel still deep, the fort still watching from the island tip.","Pensacola Pass is the archive's harbor-mouth file — the Gulf entrance guarded by three forts, where Slemmer's 1861 move to Pickens held a southern fort for the Union all four years of the war."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Pensacola Pass is the archive's Pickens file — the fortified channel where the Union held Fort Pickens through the entire Civil War while Confederate guns faced it across the water for fifteen months.","A pass built for crossfire keeps its sightlines — the file's suggestion being that Pensacola's hold is the triangle: the three forts aimed at each other across the pass, and the island fortress that never fell."]}],"name":"Pensacola Pass","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","HISTORIC_SITE","MARITIME","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","full_desc":"Pensacola Pass is a historic site in Pensacola, Florida, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing. NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad. HauntHunt files it with dark history, Underground Railroad history and the Underground Railroad. The dossier holds 2 documented facts — the record is history-forward, no paranormal claims on file. The site is open to visitors.","address":"1400 Fort Pickens Road","city":"Pensacola","county":null,"state":"Florida","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":30.440989,"lon":-87.191242,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":"NPS public listing access field: Yes. This is a listing snapshot; current arrangements still require confirmation.","ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 42FL01, source row 652. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":62.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.35,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"NPS includes this site in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The record appears in 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01'. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"Pensacola Pass is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The record appears in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. The date is part of the site's documented spine.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Historic site; verify hours and access with the managing agency before visiting; check nps.gov for current hours and alerts.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Underground Railroad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","incoming_value":"The pass—where the fugitives shipped to freedom.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"historic_designation","existing_value":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","incoming_value":"NPS Network to Freedom","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 42FL01, source row 652. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","incoming_value":"UGRR enrichment wave 4; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Pensacola Pass","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensacola_Pass","desc":"Inlet on the Florida panhandle coast","extract":"Pensacola Pass is an inlet between Santa Rosa Island and Perdido Key at the western end of the Florida Panhandle. It connects the Gulf of Mexico to Pensacola Bay. The mainland around Pensacola Bay is heavily developed, with high-rise condominiums. Santa Rosa Island and the eastern part of Perdido Key adjacent to Pensacola Pass are units of the Gulf Islands National Seashore, and remain largely undeveloped.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Perdidorivermap.png/330px-Perdidorivermap.png?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":93,"lat":30.328,"lon":-87.308},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":2,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}