On September 1, 1813, in the middle of the Admirable Campaign, patriot forces aided by Rafael Urdaneta launched a surprise attack on Puerto Cabello and captured Fortín Solano from the royalists. Among the prisoners taken the following day was Antonio Zuazola, a Spanish commander notorious for having mutilated hundreds of captives in eastern Venezuela. Simón Bolívar, leading the patriot cause, offered Domingo de Monteverde a prisoner exchange: Zuazola for Domingo Jalón. The royalists refused. Bolívar ordered Zuazola hanged from a flagpole outside the fort's walls - a grim piece of justice carried out in full view of the harbor below. The fort had changed hands, and the message was unmistakable.

Fortín Solano's cells held another famous prisoner fifteen years later. Pedro Carujo had been handpicked by Bolívar himself to lead the Military Academy in Bogotá. But when Bolívar declared his dictatorship in 1828, Carujo turned against him, joining conspirators who wanted Francisco de Paula Santander installed as constitutional president. On the night of September 25, 1828, they attempted to kill Bolívar in the presidential palace. He escaped only because Manuela Sáenz helped him jump from a window into the darkness. Carujo was sentenced to death and transferred to Fortín Solano in March 1829. He managed to escape, was recaptured and clapped in irons, then deported to Curaçao in June 1830. He returned to Venezuela months later under the government of José Antonio Páez - a survivor of his own failed revolution.

The fort saw one more violent chapter in the twentieth century. On June 2, 1962, military commanders led by Manuel Ponte Rodriguez launched the Porteñazo, an uprising against the government in Puerto Cabello. The national government responded immediately, sending Air Force bombers and Army troops under Colonel Alfredo Monch to surround the city. Most officers of the 55th National Guard squadron refused to join the rebellion. By June 3, the Ministry of Interior declared the revolt crushed, reporting 400 dead and 700 wounded. Fortín Solano had served as the rebels' last stronghold. On June 6, Army forces stormed the fortress and captured the remaining leaders. The old Spanish walls had witnessed one more siege - this time Venezuelan against Venezuelan.

Today the fort stands inside San Esteban National Park, established in 1987, its walls wrapped in tropical vegetation. It was declared a National Monument in 1965, three years after the Porteñazo scarred its stone. The park protects not only the ecological corridor of the coastal range but also other colonial-era infrastructure, including the Camino de los Españoles, the old Spanish road that once connected Puerto Cabello to Valencia del Rey. Walking that road today, beneath a canopy of green, you trace the same route that soldiers, merchants, and prisoners traveled for centuries - all of it leading uphill toward the fort on the lookout crest, still watching the harbor it was built to defend.