Hi, I'm Eric.

I’m an avid world traveler, photographer, software developer, and digital storyteller.

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122
Fort Casey Historical State Park
122

Fort Casey Historical State Park

south of Coupeville, Washington
visited 21 July 2023
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Like Fort Worden, which I visited recently, Fort Casey was built as part of our coastal defense system at the turn of the last century.

After World War II, the fort was no longer needed and so it was turned over to the state for use as a park. Today, we can all explore the gun batteries and even a couple of 16-inch guns. They are not original to this fort, but are contemporary of the era.

I visited near sunset, which added fun color and shadow to the scenes.

A close-up view straight down the muzzle of a large historic coastal artillery gun, showing the rifling inside the barrel and the engraved markings on the muzzle face reading “10 IN. No. 26 ORD. DEPT. U.S.A. Mod. 1895 Mk.” and “WATERVLIET ARSENAL 1903.” Behind the olive-green gun emplacement lie golden dry grass fields, a concrete bunker, iron railings, and a line of trees under a blue sky with wispy clouds.
Weathered concrete gun emplacements from a coastal artillery fort sit among dry grass and sandy mounds overlooking a broad blue expanse of water, with distant tree-lined shorelines under a clear blue sky in the evening light.
Rusted iron gun-mounting machinery embedded in a weathered concrete gun emplacement at a coastal fort, with warm late-day sunlight raking across the aged concrete walls and casting deep diagonal shadows.
A heavy, riveted steel door set into a cracked and weathered concrete wall at an old military fortification, featuring a small grated ventilation opening near the top, rusted hardware and a metal handle, with a stained concrete floor in the foreground.
A weathered concrete observation tower or fire-control station rises from a flared pedestal, topped with a boxy structure and surrounded by black metal railings and a walkway, set against a clear blue sky. Warm evening light falls across a dry, golden field with a line of green brush on the horizon, and stairs with a railing lead up at the lower left.
A weathered wooden staircase with a rustic gray handrail climbs a grassy hillside, flanked by dry golden grasses and green brush, leading up toward a clear deep blue sky in the warm light of late day.
Olive-green metal gun-battery emplacements set into a grassy hillside at a historic coastal fort, with a large armored circular structure in the foreground, evergreen and cypress trees behind, and a paved path leading toward a distant shoreline under a bright blue sky with wispy clouds in the golden light of a summer evening.
A weathered concrete military bunker at Fort Casey with a heavy black riveted metal door, a stone-filled window opening, and grass growing on its earth-covered roof. Concrete steps lead up on the left, and a low curving wall and pavement extend to the right under a clear blue evening sky.
A weathered gray concrete retaining wall topped with overgrown shrubs and a bright blue sky, with a black-framed white sign reading “JOHN VALLEAU” mounted on the wall above a cracked sidewalk.

Fort Casey’s grounds also include the Admiralty Head Lighthouse.

A white lighthouse attached to a two-story keeper’s house with a red roof stands on a grassy bluff above the sea, framed by windswept evergreen trees under a wide blue sky at golden hour, with picnic tables to the right.
A white lighthouse with a black lantern room and railing rises against a golden evening sky over the ocean, with a white picket fence, flowering garden beds, wind-swept trees, and a picnic area in the foreground.
A large windswept tree stands silhouetted against a golden evening sky on a grassy coastal bluff, its long shadows stretching across the dry meadow toward the camera. The sun sits low over the ocean behind the tree, with smaller evergreens, shrubs, and a distant headland visible along the horizon.
A grassy bluff overlooking the water at dusk, with a low shrub line separating the field from Puget Sound, a barge on the water, and the silhouetted Olympic Mountains beneath a warm golden sky streaked with clouds.

A funny story about this next photo, with which I’ll close this post: As I was walking back from the lighthouse, I spotted this confluence of Mount Rainier and the cannon. I spent a good 10 or 15 minutes experimenting with angles and hoping against hope that the area would eventually be clear of other park visitors.

It happened once, briefly. I got the shot I thought I wanted. But when I came back to review my work later, I found it kind of boring.

Instead I’m sharing the exact photo I had been working so hard to avoid — a photo with people in it. I especially enjoyed this one of a couple and their dogs contemplating the cannon. Hope you enjoy it too!

A large historic coastal artillery gun mounted on a concrete emplacement at Fort Casey, where a person walks a dog beside it in golden evening light. In the distance a snow-capped mountain rises above the horizon, with dry grass fields, brushy embankments, and a concrete tower in the foreground under a clear pale-blue sky.

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