Fort Wool — a decommissioned island fortification brimming with American war history — has been closed to the public for four years because the state repurposed the island as a temporary nesting habitat for seabirds. But Hampton officials are trying to change that.
Fort Wool was built on a shoal in 1819 as a companion stronghold to Fort Monroe. It was initially named Fort Calhoun after John C. Calhoun, a former U.S. Secretary of War before he became a leading proponent of Southern secession. Enslaved men forged the batteries and stone casemates on the man-made island. The fort was renamed during the Civil War in honor of Union Army Maj. Gen. John E. Wool.
Michael Cobb, former curator of the Hampton History Museum who has advocated for restoring Fort Wool, said people who get the opportunity to visit the site are often amazed by its history.
“It evokes memory of the past, not only for those who took part in it, but people who were just visiting and want to learn about our history and about Hampton Roads,” Cobb said. “It’s the ideal place to do it.”
The Hampton City Council unanimously passed a resolution Wednesday designating restoration of the island as a legislative priority, and urging the state to return the island to how it used to be so the public can once again visit. But the transition will likely take several years, as a replacement home for the migratory seabirds who reside on the island still needs to be built.
According to the city government’s website, the fort was decommissioned in 1953, and ownership was transferred to the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1967. Hampton began leasing the island in 1970, operating it as a park and tourist attraction with public access via boat. According to a 2019 state Department of Historic Resources report, more than 7,000 people visited Fort Wool annually.
However, the lease agreement ended in 2020. That year, the commonwealth closed the fort and repurposed it into a temporary seabird nesting habitat after the state’s migratory seabird colony was kicked off its former nesting site on South Island to make room for the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion project.
Significant environmental changes were made to make the habitat suitable for the birds — including pulling up trees, adding pest controls and covering the parade grounds with sand.
State and federal officials plan to invest more than $10 million so the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — in consultation with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources — can build a new, permanent island for the migratory seabirds in the next several years. When the birds used South Island, they occupied about 10 acres. The space created at Fort Wool is far smaller — only about an acre and a half.
Becky Gwynn, executive deputy director of the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, said construction of the new artificial island is now likely to occur in 2026, later than the previous 2025 construction start time.
“This project is tied to the creation, development of a new anchorage right off of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel that will be essentially like a temporary parking spot for cargo vessels coming into the port,” Gwynn said. “And so this project is being aligned with that because quite a bit of the material dredged to create that new anchorage will be used as part of the base for the seabird nesting island.”
Gwynn said it’s unclear at this point whether the new island would be ready in time for the 2026 or 2027 nesting season for the birds.
The Army Corps of Engineers did not return calls for comment by press time.
Once the birds are moved, Hampton wants the state to restore the fort. Once the restoration is complete, Hampton wants to manage Fort Wool again and reopen it to the public.
Hampton City Manager Mary Bunting said the state had previously committed to restoring Fort Wool — also known as Rip Raps Island — after the birds relocated to the new island and that the city is “encouraging them to follow through with that.”
“So for us to operate it, we would have to get a new lease,” Bunting said. “And we would certainly entertain and want that lease, but we wouldn’t want to do a lease, and then the lease say Hampton taxpayers have to do all the restoration. That wouldn’t make sense for us, so the order we sort of see is the state do the restorative work and then enter into the lease with us, and we’ll be glad to operate it as we did before.”
Cobb said he appreciates the council’s desire to bring Fort Wool back and is optimistic the state can restore the island.
“This business with sea bird temporary colony, it’s one of those things that happened, and I think our national history and our natural history are equally important, and good people on both sides and in between are working hard to bring that together — to reopen Fort Wool and find an alternative place for the seabirds that they will be safe and prosper,” he said.
Josh Janney, joshua.janney@virginiamedia.com
