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Fort Casey


Fort Casey State Park is located on Whidbey Island, in Island County, Washington state. It is a Washington state park and a historic district within the U.S. Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve.

Admiralty Inlet was considered so strategic to the defense of Puget Sound in the 1890s that three forts, Fort Casey on Whidbey Island, Fort Flagler on Marrowstone Island, and Fort Worden at Port Townsend, were built at the entrance with huge guns creating a "triangle of fire." This military strategy was built on the theory that the three fortresses would thwart any invasion attempt by sea.

Fort Casey, named for Brigadier General Thomas Lincoln Casey, U.S. Army Chief of Engineers, is now a 467-acre (1.89 km2) marine camping park. The Admiralty Head Lighthouse is located within the state park.

Three miles of the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail wrap around the park.

Designed as part of the massive modernization program of U.S. seacoast fortifications initiated by the Endicott Board, construction on Fort Casey began in 1897. In 1901, the big guns on disappearing carriages, which could be raised out of their protective emplacements so that the guns were exposed only long enough to fire, became active. However, the fort's batteries became obsolete almost as soon as their construction was completed.

The invention of the airplane in 1903, and the subsequent development of military aircraft made the fort vulnerable to air attack. In addition, the development of battleships designed with increasingly accurate weaponry transformed the static strategies of the nineteenth century into the more mobile attack systems of the twentieth century.


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