The fort was decommissioned in 1953 as a military installation. Of course, since it was named for U.S. general John Ellis Wool, its name would not have to be changed now since the passage of the 2020 Defense Bill.
It was turned over to Virginia. In the 1950s, the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) was constructed right next to the fort, with its southern island connected to the fort by an earthen causeway. The HRBT opened for traffic in 1957. In 1967 and again in 1970, the City of Hampton developed the fort into a park which could be accessed by the passenger ferry Miss Hampton II.
The fort can also be seen by westbound vehicles on approach to the HRBT southern tunnel, which carries Interstate I-64 across the mouth of Hampton Roads.
The island the fort sits on is now called Rip Raps and it continues to settle. Occasionally the casemates of the original fort are put off limits for safety reasons.
On 28 April 2007, a garrison flag was raised over the fort for the first time to salute a Parade of Tall Ships passing by it as part of the 400th anniversary of the settlement of nearby Jamestown.
What caused me to become more aware of the fort and write about it in my Not So Forgotten: War of 1812 blog (it was built as a result of the British occupying the Chesapeake Bay during that war and, of course the attacks on Washington, D.C., and Baltimore), was that the fort has now been turned into a bird sanctuary and is off limits to people.
There Needs To be Some Sort of Compromise Between Nature and People Here. --Old Secesh
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