The Presidio's Pentagram

Hi, Matt:

As a punk rock kid, up to absolutely no good, I used to hang out in the parking lot of Presidio Park and drink cheap beer. Well, in the parking lot across from the Fr. Junipero Serra Museum there is an adobe tower off to the side. After you walk up the curved stairs and walk into this open-air tower, on the ground, in mosaic tile, you'll see a pentagram that covers the totality of the floor of the tower. Who put it there? Does San Diego have a secret pagan history?

-- San Diego born and raised

Sorry, not that much fun. This is definitely Ozzie and Harriet, not Ozzy Osbourne. One of the first archaeological digs on the Presidio was done in the '50s, and in the spirit of the occasion, the Boy Scouts and the Junior League collaborated to build a lookout tower as it would have appeared at the time the Presidio was occupied with priests and soldiers. Their research included how such a tower would have been constructed and what kind of designs might have been applied to the floor. The pentagram, like the swastika, was merely a harmless decorative element until it was hijacked by special interests. It might have been used in any building in the 16th or 17th centuries.