Fort Casey Historical State Park

Author's Comments

There is a particular kind of melancholy that attaches itself to places built for a war that never came. Fort Casey was meant to hold the line at Admiralty Inlet, one of three forts trained on the entrance to Puget Sound, and the guns were obsolete almost before they were installed. What remains is concrete. Long gray batteries set into the bluff, empty carriages where the disappearing guns once rose and fell, tunnels that go dark within a few feet of the entrance. I come here for the light against all that gray. Late afternoon in September is when it works best for me. The sun drops toward the Olympics across the water and the concrete catches a warm wash that softens everything, and the shadows inside the gun emplacements go deep and graphic in a way that rewards a slow walk with a camera. Bring a flashlight. The interior corridors are darker than you expect and the compositions inside, where a rectangle of bright water appears at the end of a black passage, are some of the strongest the park offers. The lighthouse at Admiralty Head sits a short walk north, white and tidy against the bluff, and the contrast between its keeping and the fort's slow decay is most of what I think about when I am here. Below, the ferry comes and goes from Keystone on its run to Port Townsend, and the inlet stretches out wide and gray-blue toward the peninsula. This is not a place that announces itself. It is quiet, slightly somber, and best approached without a hurry. Buy the Discover Pass. Stay until the light is gone.

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