Fort Worden State Park
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Fort Worden
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Historic buildings at Fort Worden.
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| Location | Cherry and W Sts. Port Townsend, Washington |
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| Coordinates | 48°08′23″N 122°45′57″W / 48.139753°N 122.76586°WCoordinates: 48°08′23″N 122°45′57″W / 48.139753°N 122.76586°W |
| Architect | US Government War Dept. |
| NRHP Reference # | 74001954 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | March 15, 1974 |
| Designated NHLD | December 8, 1976 |
Fort Worden and accompanying Fort Worden State Park are located in Port Townsend, along Admiralty Inlet in Washington state. It is situated on 433 acres (175 ha) originally built as a United States Army installation for the protection of Puget Sound. Fort Worden was named after U.S. Navy Rear Admiral John Lorimer Worden, commander of the USS Monitor during the American Civil War.
Built between 1898 and 1920, Fort Worden was the only fort built according to the precepts of the Endicott Board on a site not already occupied by an older fortification, and it was one of the largest Endicott system forts to be built. It was also the only one built within range of a potential enemy fortification (on Vancouver Island in Canada). The fort was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976.
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.
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