36 THE STANDARD GUIDE. 
was known to the sailors of the world as “La ITabana,” and they carried 
her fame into every sea. 
Originally occupying a point of vantage and standing out in front of the 
town it was put here to defend, the fort was in course of time surrounded 
by the growing population, and its utility superseded by other and more 
powerful fortifications. The moat was filled up; barracks were built 
about it, and high walls shut it in. It was even debased to the office of a 
jail. In 1900, during the government of intervention, the Americans de¬ 
molished the encompassing walls, excavated the moat, and rebuilt the 
moat wall, replaced the drawbridge, repaired the bastions, parked the 
grounds, and thus restored to Havana this most prized memorial of the 
old days. Havana has grown away from La Fuerza and put it aside as 
a relic, but it still serves a useful purpose as a hall of records for the safe 
keeping of the national archives. In the ancient armor room in an angle 
of the moat a dynamo plant has been installed for lighting the Senate and 
the Palace; thus from out the sixteenth century comes illumination for 
the twentieth. The building is open to the public. The tower should 
be visited for its view of the harbor. Our illustration is from a photo¬ 
graph in 1902, and shows the American flag over the building Tacon 1, 
which was at that time occupied by the United States engineers. The flag 
of the Cuban Republic is the third which gazers from this old tower have 
seen flying there as symbols of sovereignty. The bell now in the tower 
bears the date 1706. With the exception of the fort at Santo Domingo, 
La Fuerza is the oldest fortification in America. 
THE OLD CHORRERA FORT. 
