Fort Worden

Fort Worden was an active US Army base from 1902 to 1953. It was purchased by the State of Washington in 1957 to house a juvenile detention facility. In 1971, use was transferred to the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission and Fort Worden State Park was opened in 1973.

Admiralty Inlet was considered so strategic to the defense of Puget Sound in the 1890s that three forts, Fort Worden, Fort Flagler, and Fort Casey, were built at the entrance with huge guns creating a "Triangle of Fire" that could theoretically thwart any invasion attempt by sea.

Fort Worden, on the Quimper Peninsula, at the extreme northeastern tip of the Olympic Peninsula, sits on a bluff near Port Townsend, anchoring the northwest side of the triangle. The three posts were designed to prevent a hostile fleet from reaching such targets as the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the cities of Seattle, Tacoma and Everett.

The forts never fired a hostile shot and the guns were removed during World War I for use in Europe. Subsequently, Fort Worden was used for training a variety of military personnel and for other defense purposes.