It is located on the outer Patapsco River as it meets the Chesapeake Bay, on a peninsula known as Rock Point.

On September 19, 2009 County Executive John R. Leopold officially dedicated the 380-foot (120 m) fishing pier at Fort Smallwood Park "Bill Burton Fishing Pier", named for the long-time Baltimore Sun outdoorsman/reporter and columnist.

[1] Fort Smallwood Road (Maryland Route 173) leads from Patapsco Avenue and Pennington Avenue in Brooklyn-Curtis Bay in southern Baltimore City across Curtis Creek, past the U.S. Coast Guard Yard through the Arundel Cove-Hawkins Point area to Riviera Beach and Pasadena coastal communities across Stony Creek to the old fort and park.

[2] From 1896 to 1928, it was an Endicott Period Coastal Fort built during the Spanish–American War era along with other outer harbor defenses at Fort Howard on North Point in southeastern Baltimore County and Fort Armistead at Hawkins Point on the Baltimore City-Anne Arundel County Line of 1919.

[3] It is the location of Battery Hartshorne, named on November 18, 1902 in honor of Captain Benjamin M. Hartshorne Jr., 7th U. S. Infantry, who was killed on January 2, 1902, in action with insurgents near Lanang, Samar, Philippine Islands during the Philippine–American War.