The California State Military MuseumRegional Historian, Pacific West Region
National Park Service
The California State Military Museum
About 1890 the army engineers planning new defenses of San Francisco
Bay proposed to build two mortar batteries on a tract of land
between Laguna de la Merced (Lake Merced or, more properly, Lake
of Mercy) and the Pacific Ocean, in the southwestern corner of
San Francisco. The Spring Valley Water Company, owner of the yet
undeveloped land, was amenable to a 'friendly' condemnation suit,
and in this manner the government acquired in December 1900 roughly
45 acres at $900 per acre, and established the Lake Merced Military
Reservation. However no construction took place until World War
I provided the stimulus, when in February 1917 the Engineers commenced
building a temporary battery for four 12-inch mortars, with the
guns for it to come from Batteries Stotsenburg-McKinnon, Pits
3 and 4. The battery is significant because of its unusual straight
line configuration (a result of the practical difficulties of
having four crews working simultaneously in a four mortar pit),
and because it was the very last mortar battery in service in
the United States
Battery Howe apparently retained its mortars until 1945, this "temporary" battery thus far outlasting the armament of many "permanent" mortar batteries Today, however, nothing remains of Battery Walter Howe. It was destroyed when the City of San Francisco expanded it water treatment facilities to the north of the old fort.
