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

I help implement the Content Authenticity Initiative at Adobe.

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120

Fort Worden Historical State Park

120

Fort Worden Historical State Park

Port Townsend, Washington

visited 18 January 2004, 18 December 2022, and 15 July 2023

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One of many forts constructed to protect Washington’s Pacific coast from foreign attack a century or more ago, Fort Worden now serves as a tourist attraction and conference center at the northeast tip of the Olympic Peninsula.

Fort Worden was an active US Army base from 1902 to 1953, then briefly a juvenile detention facility, and since 1973 has been a state park.

Even though I live nearby, this park is one of our larger parks and it’s taken me a few times through to represent it adequately. Let’s start with its many historical buildings that now serve as museums, theatres, college grounds, and wedding sites:

A two-story white clapboard building with wraparound porches and columns housing the Coast Artillery Museum, fronted by a concrete walkway, a central staircase, and two large black artillery shells flanking the steps under a clear blue sky. An American flag hangs by the entrance and another flies on a pole to the right.

A large white clapboard barracks building with green-trimmed windows and a covered arched veranda, standing on a grassy rise under a deep blue sky at Fort Worden Historical State Park. A concrete walkway runs alongside the building past low shrubs, with distant water and mountains visible on the right and a few people and parked cars in the background.

A white two-story wooden building with double-decker porches, white columns, and green railings, seen from ground level over a patch of dry, brown grass. The dark windows have green trim, a black folding chair sits on the lower porch, and green lattice encloses the crawl space beneath the raised deck.

A large white two-story wooden military barracks building with wraparound porches supported by columns, set on a bluff above blue water with distant mountains under a clear blue sky. Dry golden grass grows in the foreground, and a couple, one wearing a white dress, walks along the building’s lower level.

A red brick tower with castle-like crenellations rises above an attached brick house with white-trimmed windows and a covered porch, set atop a dry, sun-browned grassy hill under a clear blue sky. Green trees and shrubs flank the building at Fort Worden Historical State Park.

While walking around this area, I happened upon a volunteer (whose name I sadly didn’t catch) with Friends of Fort Worden State Park. I asked him what I should see in an afternoon’s tour of the park. His advice: Hike up Artillery Hill and view the many gun batteries that were left behind when the Army closed the fort.

Great advice! This was a bounty of textures, shapes, and contours.

A weathered concrete military bunker with three sets of black metal doors set into its olive-green facade, topped by a mound of dry grasses, under a clear deep-blue sky. A white sign reading “HALDIMAND PUTNAM” is mounted above the central doorway.

A weathered concrete military bunker set into a grass-covered hillside, its earthen roof topped with tall golden dry grass under a deep blue sky. The facade has a heavy black riveted steel double door, chained and padlocked, flanked by stained and cracked concrete walls, with a paved apron in the foreground.

The corner of a weathered white clapboard building with peeling paint, showing two double-hung windows framed in faded green trim and a small placard reading “261” near the corner. Patchy dry grass grows along the base under a clear blue sky.

A narrow dirt footpath winds through a sunlit forest of tall pine and deciduous trees, flanked by golden and green grasses and low undergrowth on a summer afternoon.

An abandoned concrete military gun battery with a rusted metal ladder, a weathered rusty steel door, and remnants of green paint, set against a bright blue sky with wispy clouds. Tall evergreen trees and overgrown green brush surround the crumbling fortification.

A heavy riveted steel door, its green paint faded and rusting, stands ajar in the concrete doorway of an abandoned military bunker, revealing a dark chamber beyond with mossy, water-stained walls and a debris-strewn floor.

An abandoned concrete coastal artillery battery with weathered green metal doors and stained walls, topped by a taller concrete structure accessed by a metal staircase with a handrail. Overgrown grass and evergreen trees surround the fortification under a bright blue sky with wispy clouds.

A rusted, riveted iron door set into a weathered concrete bunker wall painted faded pale green, with a round pull ring near its center and tall grasses and pine cones growing up in front of it.

An abandoned concrete building with weathered, stained walls sits in a shaded evergreen forest, its roofline topped by a tall square chimney and its open doorway and barred window revealing an empty interior. Dappled sunlight falls across the grassy, dirt clearing surrounding the structure.

A weathered white clapboard building on brick pilings with peeling paint and a slate roof, set in a grassy clearing bordered by tall evergreens and a leafy tree. A stone bench sits on dry grass in the foreground and a dirt path curves toward the building under a partly cloudy blue sky.

Crumbling brick and concrete foundation ruins overtaken by trees and tall dry grass in a sunlit forest clearing, with a pine and slender saplings growing directly out of a moss-covered mound of old masonry.

An abandoned concrete bunker with empty window and door openings sits beside a wet, curving paved road, surrounded by dune grass. A wind-shaped conifer tree grows directly out of the structure’s flat roof beneath a partly cloudy sky.

Two heavy, rusted metal doors stand open on either side of a dark concrete bunker entrance at Fort Worden, revealing a shadowy passage inside. The cracked, weathered concrete wall shows moss and age, with a stepped walkway leading up to the doorway.

A weathered concrete circular gun emplacement at an abandoned coastal artillery battery, with curved tiered steps and a central mounting pad, surrounded by a curving wall of peeling paint in patches of green, pink, and gray beneath a blue sky with clouds. Red doors and a small window are set into the wall, with a lone shrub visible above the parapet.

An abandoned two-story concrete military structure with peeling paint, moss-stained columns, and metal railings, fronted by a paved walkway and a set of concrete stairs leading to the upper level. A mowed green lawn is in the foreground and a windswept pine tree stands against an overcast sky at left.

The US Coast Guard also has a long history in this site, having operated a lighthouse at this location since 1879. The current structure opened in 1914 and remains active today.