NATIONAL PARK SERVICE • U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Foundation Document Overview Gulf Islands National Seashore Florida/Mississippi Contact Information For more information about the Gulf Islands National Seashore Foundation Document, contact: [email protected] or (850) 934-2600 or write to: Superintendent, Gulf Islands National Seashore, 1801 Gulf Breeze Parkway, Gulf Breeze, FL 32563 Purpose Significance Fundamental Resources and Values Significance statements express why Gulf Islands National Seashore resources and values are important enough to merit national park unit designation. Statements of significance describe why an area is important within a global, national, regional, and systemwide context. These statements are linked to the purpose of the park unit, and are supported by data, research, and consensus. Significance statements describe the distinctive nature of the park and inform management decisions, focusing efforts on preserving and protecting the most important resources and values of the park unit. • Gulf Islands National Seashore possesses dynamic beach ecosystems, a diversity of wildlife, and scenic character that are publicly accessible and provide a striking contrast to the surrounding urban development of the northern Gulf Coast. • Gulf Islands National Seashore exhibits the natural biologic and geologic processes of the dynamic and rapidly changing barrier islands, which are interconnected along 160 miles of the northern Gulf Coast. • Horn and Petit Bois Islands, the only nationally designated barrier island wilderness areas on the Gulf Coast protected by the National Park Service, provide opportunities for solitude and unconfined recreation. GULF ISLANDS NATIONAL SEASHORE • Gulf Islands National Seashore contains one of the most preserves and interprets an complete collections of forts and structures relating to the interconnected system of coastal evolution of seacoast defense in the United States. Publicly accessible sites represent a continuum of development defense fortifications, barrier from the Spanish colonization of the 18th century through islands, wilderness, and coastal and World War II. marine ecosystems in Mississippi and northwest Florida, while providing • Gulf Islands National Seashore contains more than 120,000 acres of submerged land and open water, protects marine for public use and enjoyment. processes and ecosystems, and provides opportunities for water-based recreation. Fundamental Resources and Values Fundamental resources and values are those features, systems, • Barrier Islands. The barrier islands of the national processes, experiences, stories, scenes, sounds, smells, or seashore extend for 160 miles along the northern Gulf other attributes determined to merit primary consideration Coast and include Santa Rosa Island and Perdido Key in during planning and management processes because they are Florida and Petit Bois, West Petit Bois, Horn, East and essential to achieving the purpose of the park and maintaining West Ship, and Cat Islands in Mississippi. The natural its significance. processes of waves, sand deposition, storms, and currents are still evident in the migration of these islands. The • Terrestrial and Marine Ecosystems. Terrestrial and islands support a range of visitor opportunities and marine ecosystems in Gulf Islands National Seashore are amenities from isolated backcountry locations to popular extremely diverse. More than 80% of the national seashore traditional beach activities. is marine or open-water habitat, including seagrass beds, tidal salt marshes, bayous, and deeper open-water areas. The • Visitor Opportunities. Gulf Islands National Seashore seashore supports habitat for more than 400 fish species and supports a wide variety of recreational, educational, and provides essential fish habitat and important nursery habitat. scenic opportunities for visitor enjoyment, including both Terrestrial habitats include newly formed and relict sand land-based and water-based activities. Opportunities dunes, live oak forests, wet pine flatwoods, and maritime include water sports, visiting historic sites, wildlife forests. More than a dozen federally listed threatened and viewing, boating, hunting and fishing, and traditional endangered species are present in the national seashore. recreational activities on pristine white sand beaches. The Wildlife species of special concern include four sea turtles, seashore invites visitors to enjoy themselves on isolated the Gulf sturgeon, the eastern indigo snake, the piping wilderness islands or popular white sand beaches near plover, the red knot, the Perdido Key beach mouse, and Pensacola and Navarre. the West Indian manatee. State-listed species include the diamondback terrapin in Mississippi and the snowy plover • Gulf Islands Wilderness. The Gulf Islands Wilderness and least tern in Florida. was established as a component of the National Wilderness Preservation System by the National Parks • Coastal Fortifications. The coastal fortifications in and Recreation Act of 1978, Public Law (PL) 95-625, Gulf Islands National Seashore represent a continuum of on November 10, 1978. This legislation designated seacoast defense systems that span almost 150 years from approximately 1,800 acres of the seashore as wilderness the Spanish colonial era through World War II. Fort Pickens, and an additional 2,800 acres as potential wilderness, Fort Barrancas, Advanced Redoubt, Fort McRee, Fort for a total of approximately 4,600 acres. The Gulf Massachusetts, 13 concrete gun batteries and numerous Islands Wilderness consists of lands on Horn and Petit barracks, support structures, and ruins at Fort McRee and Bois Islands off the coast of Mississippi; it is the only Fort Pickens illustrate the evolution of harbor defenses in designated wilderness area on the Gulf Coast protected response to changes in weapons technology. The national by the National Park Service. The wilderness boundary seashore also maintains collections of artifacts, documents, includes all of Petit Bois Island and most of Horn and archives associated with the fortifications’ architecture, Island. Scenic views, night skies, and natural sounds are weaponry, and histories. important components of the wilderness character. Description Gulf Islands National Seashore was Gulf Islands National Seashore contains a number of 19th century forts built as part of established by the U.S. Congress the “Third System” of national defense. Construction of Fort Pickens, the largest, was on January 8, 1971. The national initiated in 1829 and completed in 1834. Two forts on the mainland, Fort Barrancas seashore encompasses barrier islands, and Advanced Redoubt, are on Naval Air Station Pensacola. Fort Barrancas includes coastal mainlands, and surrounding the 18th century Spanish Bateria de San Antonio, a national historic landmark. Other waters in Mississippi and Florida and Third System forts include Fort McRee in Florida, which is now an archeological site, extends for 160 miles from Cat Island and Fort Massachusetts in Mississippi on the northwestern shore of West Ship Island. in Mississippi to the eastern end of These forts were built as part of a fortification effort to protect all major U.S.harbors Santa Rosa Island in the northwest after the War of 1812. Many of the extant cultural resources on Santa Rosa Island were section of Florida’s panhandle. The part of the 13th Coast Artillery Regiment of the U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps. In To Wiggins To Red To Historic Blakeley additionand Hattiesburg to the coastal defense forts, numerousMcLain artilleryLucedale batteries can be found that 98 er State Park Riv To C national seashore was set aside for the r ter Tallahassee e a e MOBILE w E ck k a span the time from the Civil War to the end of World War II. 59 s l c B 10 purpose of preserving areas possessing a 87 31 m 65 Styx b i a 197 r e outstanding natural, historic, and v i R MISSISSIPPI 85 90 R 10 iv e recreational values for public use and Loxley r Cantonment R r i Milton e v w 57 r v e o i r ll e 98 90 e enjoyment. The current authorized v R Y r i 163 e R v i 614 R 193 29 acreage of the national seashore is o d FLORIDA B a Robertsdale i il ox l B d i Vancleave u a la r 104 e 67 o p c 139,175 acres. From 2011 to 2014, k P 90 g w 63 w a 10 a 90 F A c a t s t o e 87 49 a Fairhope r a w P c MOBILE l s r annual average visitation was almost 5 R E i 90 e v v 281 e i r R R ALABAMA i BAY million visitors. v 189 To e r 59 EAST r ESCAMBIA 193 e New Grand v 110 BAY i BAY Fort Orleans R Bay 90 Holley 90 Walton D'Iberville 188 173 609 10 E Beach The resources of the seashore range Ocean Springs 292 PENSACOLA ast r sh Bay Rive 110 Fi Y Mary 57 A 49 B Toll bridge Esther from remote wilderness islands with Biloxi Moss Point Bayou La Batre 98 Navarre 98 90 Gautier 98 Foley Y A 295 B Air Force Base 98 few visitors to publicly accessible white 173 Eglin See Davis Bayou LA d Navarre Beach Gulfport 293 ACO o u n 399 u n d a r y Alabama Port PENS s a S e B o map below Pascagoula R o s h o r To Gulf a S e a sand beaches and historic sites visited by Passenger ferry S a n t l Destin Alabama a Mississippi O 292 Breeze t i o n D d N a I Islan (no cars) D Pensacola Beach M I S ER osa several million people each year. It also S I S S P 292A R Santa Rosa Area Okaloosa Area East I P P Santa I Opal Beach BON SECOUR Ship includes bayous, salt marshes, live oaks, S O U N D ey West Horn K See Fort Pickens map below Island do s Perdi Ship s BAY a Island Sand P maritime forests, and 120,000 acres of Petit Island s ss y Island ss 182 a e Bois a P K s Toll P Perdido Key Area s GULF ISLANDS NATIONAL SEASHORE d g s nd Gulf a Island Isla Ferry marine habitat.