The lovely Civil War-era Fort Delaware was clobbered with tons of ugly concrete in the 1890's, at the whim of William Crowninshield Endicott. Had it not been for the structural needs of 12" disappearing guns, this and many other American forts would look much prettier today...well, if they even still existed. One supposes that the Endicott Board, in uglifying a great many US seacoast fortifications with concrete, also resurrected those fortifications, making them once again (briefly) instrumental to their nation's defense. Had it not been for all of this frantic concrete-pouring, these forts we love so dearly may well have just been demolished, or left to the elements, as have been so many forts from this era in other parts of the world.