---
title: "Fort Christian, St. Thomas: History, Status, Getting There · Virgin Islands Villas"
url: https://virginislandvilla.com/st-thomas/guides/fort-christian
description: "Fort Christian on the Charlotte Amalie waterfront: built 1672 to 1680, its status as of October 2026, and the measured legs from both cruise piers."
updated: 2026-10-10
source: https://virginislandvilla.com/st-thomas/guides/fort-christian
---

[St. Thomas](https://virginislandvilla.com/st-thomas) · Charlotte Amalie

# Fort Christian

Written by Virgin Islands Villas · Updated Oct 10, 2026 · [How this was checked](https://virginislandvilla.com/editorial-policy)

Fort Christian, St. Thomas's Danish fort on the Charlotte Amalie waterfront, was built between 1672 and 1680 and has been a National Historic Landmark since 1977, per the National Park Service. It is run as the Fort Christian Museum. Below: its history, its status as of October 2026, and the measured legs from both cruise piers.

At a glance · checked Oct 9, 2026

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| Built | 1672 to 1680 Walls, keep and buildings substantially finished by 1676; clock tower and north entrance 1874 to 1878 (National Park Service, landmark nomination, read 2026-10-09). |
| Landmark | National Historic Landmark, May 5, 1977 National Park Service, checked 2026-10-09. |
| Run by | Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources As the Fort Christian Museum; permanent exhibits in the conceptual planning phase per DPNR's release of May 26, 2026. |
| Hours and admission | Not published DPNR posts neither on its site as of October 9, 2026. Call its St. Thomas office, (340) 774-3320, before you go. |
| From Havensight | 12 min drive Measured from the West Indian Company dock to the Charlotte Amalie ferry terminal on the waterfront, about 0.6 mile west of the fort, 2026-10-09. |
| From Crown Bay | 9 min drive or 40 min walk Drive measured to the Charlotte Amalie ferry terminal, walk to the center of town about 200 yards from the fort, 2026-10-09. |
| From the airport | 15 min drive Measured from Cyril E. King Airport to the center of Charlotte Amalie, 2026-09-15; longer on cruise days. |

## When was Fort Christian built, and by whom?

The Danes built Fort Christian between 1672 and 1680, in the first years of the colony, according to the landmark nomination the National Park Service holds. The Danish West India and Guinea Company was founded in 1671 to settle St. Thomas, and its governor, Jørgen Iversen, chose a low hill on a peninsula that ran about 700 feet into the middle of the harbor. His accounts show the outer walls, the four diamond-shaped bastions and a three-story keep called Trygborg substantially finished by 1676. In August 1674 he acquired for the company an enslaved mason, Simon Lamare, to serve as clerk of the works.

The fort was tested once. In February 1678 about 60 French settlers from St. Croix tried to take the island, and with no siege guns they could not take the walls. Iversen then put a watchtower, Skytsborg, on the hill behind town in 1679, and his successor moved into the finished fort in July 1680. Measured center to center of its walls, the fort is 115 feet east to west and 123 feet north to south.

## Seat of government, then police station and prison

For its first half century the fort was the colony: the governor's residence, the courthouse, the treasury and, for most of those years, the Lutheran congregation's church, per the National Park Service nomination. A remodeling finished on April 30, 1735 gave it the continuous gun deck on its roof that it still has. In 1755 the governor moved to Christiansted on St. Croix, and after the British occupied St. Thomas in 1801 and again from 1807 to 1815, the fort was never again treated as a serious defense.

In 1874 it became a police station. Trygborg was blown up on June 19 that year, and the north wall was replaced between 1874 and 1878 by the Gothic Revival entrance and clock tower that face town today. The transfer of the islands from Denmark to the United States in 1917 was held at the fort, and from 1917 to 1983 it served as the territory's police station and prison. A small museum opened in four rooms of the southeast bastion in November 1971 while the prison held the rest. The Secretary of the Interior designated the fort a National Historic Landmark on May 5, 1977, and the police and the jail moved out in 1983.

## Is Fort Christian open, and what does it cost?

The Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources (DPNR) runs the fort as the Fort Christian Museum, and as of October 2026 it publishes no opening hours or admission on its site. Its most recent word on the fort is a release of May 26, 2026: DPNR is in "the conceptual planning phase" of permanent exhibits for Fort Christian and for Fort Frederik on St. Croix, designed by the firm Howard + Revis, with a public meeting on the St. Thomas fort scheduled for June 9, 2026.

The fort has closed and reopened before. The St. Thomas Source reported it reopening on March 29, 2017, after a restoration that began in 2005, and again in February 2018, after the September 2017 hurricanes. The hours and prices printed around the web date from those years and disagree with each other, so we print none.

The tradeoff: this is a landmark with no published timetable, and the rooms inside are between exhibits. Call DPNR's St. Thomas office, (340) 774-3320, before you plan a morning around it, and treat the walls, the gun deck and the clock tower as the visit.

## Getting to Fort Christian from the cruise piers

Ships dock at Havensight, east of town, or at Crown Bay, to the west, and from either one the fort is a short taxi ride. Each leg below says where it ends: the drives at the Edward Wilmoth Blyden IV Marine Terminal, the Charlotte Amalie ferry terminal on the waterfront about 0.6 mile west of the fort, and the walk at the center of town, about 200 yards from it.

| From | By taxi, to the ferry terminal | On foot, to the center of town |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Havensight, West Indian Company dock | 12 min | left out |
| Crown Bay cruise terminal | 9 min | 40 min |

Drives and the walk measured October 9, 2026. From Havensight we give the drive only: our walking route out of that port was not one a person would take, so we left it out. The taxi into town is $6 a person from Havensight, and from Crown Bay $8 for one rider or $6 each for two or more, on the Virgin Islands Taxicab Commission's tariff in force since October 2022.

## From the airport, Red Hook or St. John

From Cyril E. King Airport the drive to the center of Charlotte Amalie measures 15 minutes, and from the Red Hook ferry dock on the East End it measures 29, both on an ordinary day and both longer when ships are in.

From St. John, the ferry from Cruz Bay to Charlotte Amalie takes 45 minutes and costs $13 an adult one way per Transportation Services of St. John; the operator's timetable lists two sailings each way, as of October 2026. It lands at the Edward Wilmoth Blyden IV Marine Terminal on the waterfront west of the fort, so a day in town works only if you plan around the last boat back.

## What stands around the fort on the waterfront

Fort Christian sits in the middle of the old Danish town, and three of its neighbors are part of its story. Emancipation Garden, laid out in 1873 on land reclaimed from the sea, is on its west side. To the south, across Veterans Drive, the barracks built in 1827 and 1828 for the garrison now house the Legislature. On the hill behind town, Skytsborg, the watchtower Iversen built in 1679 and known now as Blackbeard's Castle, is a National Historic Landmark of its own, designated in 1994, and so is the St. Thomas Synagogue, designated on September 25, 1997.

Facts checked against [the National Park Service](https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/3030ccc9-437d-4846-99f6-2f05d17b0a9f), [the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources](https://dpnr.vi.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/DLAM-TOWN-HALL-MEETINGS.pdf), [Transportation Services of St. John](https://transportationservicesusvi.com/fares) and [the Virgin Islands Port Authority](https://www.viport.com/airport-parking-groundtransport). Checked October 2026.

Related guides

- [A St. Thomas sailing itinerary, from a house on land](https://virginislandvilla.com/st-thomas/guides/st-thomas-itinerary)

- [Things to do in St. Thomas with kids](https://virginislandvilla.com/st-thomas/guides/st-thomas-with-kids)

- [All of St. Thomas](https://virginislandvilla.com/st-thomas)

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