![]() In 1876, the lighthouse was moved to Ochoa Bastion, the bastion closest to the sea, where it could be better seen by vessels approaching the harbor from the northeast. Built atop the fort’s Austria Bastion, the bastion closest to the bay’s entrance, the lighthouse exhibited a light using five parabolic reflectors. The first Puerto San Juan Lighthouse, and the first in all of Puerto Rico, entered service on January 1, 1846. Multiple lighthouses have served to mark the entrance to Puerto San Juan, one of the most important ports in the Spanish Empire. The dome-covered sentry boxes found on many angles of the fort are known as garitas and have become a symbol of Puerto Rico. The fort, commonly known as El Morro, has six levels and rises to a height of 145 above the surrounding water. Originally six feet thick, the fort’s outer walls had grown to their current thickness of eighteen feet by the end of the 1700s. Work on Castillo Felipe del Morro, the fort on the northwest corner of the Islet of San Juan, began in the 1500s, but the structure was modified over the following 400 years to keep pace with new military technologies. ![]()
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