Fort Casey Historical State Park History

Fort Casey Historical State Park preserves an example of a US Army defense project from the beginning of the 20th century. Its strategic location on a high bluff at the entrance to Puget Sound also features an historic lighthouse and sweeping vistas of the islands, waterways and mountain ranges that have attracted people here for millennia.

Indigenous Lands and Settler Claims

This park’s location on Whidbey Island lies within the traditional territories of Coast Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Tulalip Tribes, Suquamish Tribe, and Lummi Nation. For thousands of years, this area and the waters of Admiralty Inlet have provided a habitat for a diverse community of life that forms the basis of their cultures. The prairies and forests of the area were stewarded with prescribed burning to encourage food resources like camas, berry bushes and shrubs that provided browse for deer. Today’s Admiralty Head served Indigenous people as a lookout point. When incoming raiders were spotted, runners carried the news to nearby villages to warn others.

Captain George Vancouver’s Voyage of Discovery passed the site of today’s Fort Casey Historical State Park on May 18, 1792, describing the area as “the most lovely country that can be imagined.” He named the waterway “Admiralty Inlet,” in honor of the British Board of Admiralty that had mandated his voyage to determine the existence or absence of a northern sea passage through North America. In 1841, Lt. Charles Wilkes of the US Exploring Expedition named the headland to be occupied by Fort Casey “Red Bluff,” but the name “Admiralty Head” later gained common usage.

Colonial administration passed from Great Britain to the United States in 1846. Passage of the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 by the US Congress allowed American settlers to claim land in the territory, appropriating Indigenous lands. Several dozen donation land claims were made in the central part of Whidbey Island, taking advantage of the “garden spot” that had been maintained for millennia by Indigenous residents. Admiralty Head was included in the 322-acre claim by Dr. John Kellogg and his wife Caroline, who had travelled to the territory on the Oregon Trail in 1852. The survey of their claim begins:

Begin at post in surround of stone at NW corner of this claim and SW corner of Charles Crockett’s claim. From this post I run along meanders of beach along Admiralty Head and Bay…

Local tribes ceded ownership of the area to the US federal government under duress in the Treaty of Point Elliot in 1855, keeping rights to harvest natural resources in their usual and accustomed places, including the lands and waters around Admiralty Inlet. After government land surveys were completed in 1856, Donation Land Claims could be patented, securing private ownership of the land. The Kelloggs’ claim was patented on February 27, 1875. Dr. Kellogg was known as the “canoe doctor,” for his habit of hiring skilled Indigenous canoeists to ferry him to house calls.

Building a Lighthouse

On August 18, 1856, the US Congress approved “An Act making appropriations for Light-houses, Light-boats, Buoys &c., and providing for the Erection and Establishment of the same…” including $25,000 “for a light-house at Red Bluff, Whidby’s Island.” $400 of the total was spent to purchase 10 acres on Admiralty Head from the Kelloggs. The Red Bluff Lighthouse, a two-story wooden structure with a light tower placed like a church steeple became operational on January 21, 1861. Captain William Robertson, another Donation Land Claimant on Whidbey Island, was appointed the first lighthouse keeper.

The second lighthouse keeper was Daniel Pearson, appointed in 1864. Interestingly, Daniel and two of his daughters had arrived in Washington Territory as a part of the “Mercer Girl” expedition promoted by University of Washington founder Asa Mercer. In March 1864, Mercer travelled to Lowell, Massachusetts, to recruit unmarried women from the idled cotton mills there to move to Washington Territory. At the time, Washington had a very gender-imbalanced non-Indigenous population, consisting mostly of single men working in the timber and fishing industries. Daniel Pearson accompanied his 19-and 15-year-old daughters, arriving in Seattle on May 16, 1864. Both daughters secured teaching positions on Whidbey Island. After his older daughter died in August of that year Daniel moved to Whidbey Island, where he was appointed lighthouse keeper at Red Bluff. His surviving daughter Georgianna was appointed assistant lightkeeper. Daniel’s wife and two younger children moved to Whidbey Island in 1866. Georgianna married in 1867, and her younger sister Flora succeeded her as assistant lightkeeper.

The Endicott Board

In the years after the end of the US Civil War, significant technological advances in heavy arms and naval capabilities made existing US coastal defenses obsolete. In 1885, US President Grover Cleveland appointed a military and civilian board to develop recommendations. The board was guided by US Secretary of War William Endicott. The 1886 report of the Endicott Board, as it became known, detailed the state of neglect of US defenses and advocated for a construction program to build fortifications at 29 sites on the US coast, including the entrance to Puget Sound.

Building a Fort and a New Lighthouse

The Endicott Board’s designs featured concrete walls that concealed heavy steel breech-loaded rifled cannons mounted on “disappearing carriages.” These allowed the cannons to be raised above the walls, aimed and fired, then rapidly pulled back to conceal their location and protect the artillery crew as it reloaded. Instead of dramatic fortresses visible from miles away, the new forts featured guns and structures that were invisible from the sea.

On June 6, 1896, the US Congress authorized the Secretary of War to build three forts to protect the entrance to Puget Sound at Admiralty Inlet. 123 acres adjacent to the Red Bluff Lighthouse were purchased from the Kellogg family. To make room for the gun emplacements, the lighthouse was first moved to the north, then replaced with a new structure designed by prominent Pacific Northwest lighthouse architect Carl Leick. It was activated on June 25, 1903, and renamed Admiralty Head Lighthouse.

Fort construction began in July 1897, and it was fully operational on July 19, 1902. The fort was named in honor of Brigadier General Thomas Lincoln Casey, a US Army Chief of Engineers. Fort Casey was armed with 35 artillery pieces: seven 10-inch disappearing guns, six 6-inch disappearing guns, two 5-inch balanced pillar guns, four 3-inch pedestal guns and sixteen 12-inch mortars.

The guns were never fired against an enemy and quickly became obsolete.  By the 1920s, advances in naval technologies and the rise of airpower had eroded the effectiveness of coastal forts. Warships began carrying guns that could shoot farther and more accurately than the guns at Fort Casey. In addition, aircraft could travel longer distances and carry heavy bombs. Large guns mounted in open concrete batteries were vulnerable to these new weapons.

On June 30, 1922, the light was deactivated, as steam-powered shipping traffic shifted to the opposite shore of Admiralty Inlet and no longer had a need for guidance at that location. The lantern house was removed and reused at the New Dungeness Lighthouse near Sequim, WA.

The fort remained active, training soldiers for the trenches of Europe in World War I, and it was reactivated as an induction and training center during World War II. All of the 10 and 12-inch guns were dismounted and scrapped in 1942 as part of the first large scale scrap drive during World War II. Fort Casey was permanently deactivated on June 30, 1953, and transferred to the General Services Administration.

Making a State Park

On December 1, 1955, the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission (WSPRC) purchased 105 acres of the Fort Casey military reservation, including most of the former gun battery sites, for development as a state park. In 1956, Seattle Pacific University purchased most of the fort’s housing area for use as the Camp Casey Conference Center. The park was dedicated on September 9, 1962.

Guns on Display

Since all of the original guns installed at Fort Casey had been removed, WSPRC staff sought to locate surviving armaments that could be displayed to provide a more realistic interpretation of the fort’s historic appearance. Six abandoned guns of the same type as were formerly deployed at Fort Casey were located at Fort Wint at Subic Bay in the Philippines, still an active US Naval Base at the time. The guns had been disabled prior to the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in 1941 and sustained minor damage from bombing that occurred during the US Navy’s return to the Philippines in 1945.

Four 3-inch pedestal guns were removed from the Philippines and transported to the Bremerton Naval Shipyard in Washington in 1963. Two were installed at Fort Casey Historical State Park on May 7, 1963, and the others were installed at Fort Flagler Historical State Park shortly after.

Acquiring the two 10-inch disappearing guns was much more expensive and complicated. Fundraising attempts by local service clubs were inadequate even after Governor Daniel J. Evans declared November 1965 to be “Guns for Fort Casey Month.” In 1967, the Washington State Legislature appropriated $20,000 for the project and the guns were removed from the Philippines and shipped to Washington in June 1968. The newly installed guns were dedicated at Fort Casey on August 11, 1968.

Admiralty Head Lantern House Restoration

In 2007, long time Admiralty Head Lighthouse Docent Dick Malone began a project to build an historically accurate lantern house for the Admiralty Head Lighthouse. A partnership was established with shop students at Oak Harbor, Coupeville and South Whidbey High Schools to fabricate the structure. Local businesses donated materials and expertise, and a local crane service moved and replaced the 5,000-pound lantern house. The newly installed lantern house was dedicated on September 8, 2012.