The lighthouse station developed after the United States took control of Florida, and the present tower reflects the strategic growth of Pensacola Bay and the nearby Navy yard.
Robert the Doll is a large handmade figure created around the beginning of the twentieth century and associated with Key West artist Robert Eugene Otto. The doll entered the Key West Art & Historical Society collection in 1994 and is displayed at Fort East Martello Museum. Stories that Robert moves, changes expression, or punishes disrespectful visitors belong to museum folklore and personal testimony, not verified paranormal evidence.
The burial ground was in use by the mid-to-late eighteenth century and contains markers from Pensacola's Second Spanish Period onward, with thousands of marked and probable unmarked graves.