Fort Ebey State Park History

Fort Ebey State Park preserves a World War II era military facility established to bolster Puget Sound coastal defenses. Its unobstructed view west through the Strait of Juan de Fuca provided a valued strategic location and features wide vistas for park visitors today.

Glacial Kettles

Around 17,000 years ago, a lobe of the continental ice sheet filled most of today’s Salish Sea basin during its last major advance into the region. The ice reached a thickness of nearly 4,000 feet in the area of today’s park before beginning to melt. Around 13,000 years ago the retreating front of the glacier stabilized for a while in the vicinity of today’s Fort Ebey State Park.

As the glacier melted it left large ice blocks that had “calved” (broken from the edge of the glacier). The ice blocks were buried by meltwater sediments. After burial, the ice melted slowly, eventually leaving large depressions known as kettles. Within Fort Ebey State Park and the adjacent Kettles Island County Park there are at least 25 kettles ranging from 160-feet-deep to 820-feet-deep. The most accessible kettle is filled by Lake Pondilla at the north end of the park.

Indigenous Lands

Fort Ebey State Park lies within the traditional territories of Coast Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Tulalip Tribes, Suquamish Tribe and Lummi Nation. For thousands of years this area has provided habitat for a diverse community of life that forms the basis of their cultures. The area around Fort Ebey State Park had one of the highest Indigenous population densities into historical times. Nearby Penn Cove is well protected from winter storms and has highly productive marine resources. Treeless prairie areas in the area were rich sources of Indigenous plant resources, including camas and other bulbs, bracken fern roots, berries and nuts. Indigenous people periodically burned the prairies to maintain their productivity. 

Survey notes indicated that the high bluffs in today’s park were utilized by Indigenous people as a lookout point for detection and early warning of raiding parties from other Indigenous nations, especially Haida and Tlingit from far to the north.

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 Whidbey Island and its surrounding waters.

Land Distribution

Government surveys were completed in 1858 and some of the land was sold in the 1870s to investors as Cash Entry patents, a type of land sale of public domain lands. Most of the land in today’s Fort Ebey State Park was granted to the State of Washington at statehood in 1889 as a part of millions of acres of trust lands to provide financial support for public schools. While most granted lands were kept in state trust ownership, 75 acres of the trust land at this location was transferred into private ownership of the Foss Tug and Barge Company.

Fort Ebey

Fort Ebey was the last fort developed as part of the Puget Sound coastal defense. Due to the location’s clear view westward through the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the open Pacific Ocean, it was deemed essential for an enhanced defense of the region during World War II. Battery 248, the site’s only fortification, was designed with technology not available at other Puget Sound defense facilities, including radar and camouflage to hide the location from aerial view.

The US Army Corps of Engineers acquired land from the Foss Tug and Barge Company by a condemnation proceeding, and additional lands by purchase from two private owners and the State of Washington.

In 1943, two six-inch guns were installed. The guns could fire a projectile weighing 108 pounds at moving targets up to 15 miles away every 12 seconds. Battery 248 was never fired against an enemy target.

After the war, Fort Ebey’s guns were cut up and melted down for scrap. Changing methods of warfare, including long-range bombing and missile technology made the coastal forts obsolete.

Creating a State Park

On April 9, 1965, Washington State Parks and Recreation (WSPRC) Director Charles H. Odegaard applied to the US General Services Administration to purchase the 204 acres of the former Fort Ebey land. On November 5. 1965, the land was transferred to the WSPRC for a cost of $57,500. The park property remained undeveloped, awaiting planning and funding to develop park facilities, including a legal access route.

In 1971, the Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) established a recreation lease on 23 acres of the adjoining state trust lands and developed road access and a primitive campground with a beach access trail. In 1980, DNR granted the WSPRC an easement over the road, providing an access route to the state park property. In exchange for the easement, the two agencies entered into an agreement for the WSPRC to maintain the recreational facilities on the DNR recreation lease.

After the park access road, campground and other park developments were completed, Fort Ebey State Park was dedicated on June 13, 1981.

In 1989, the Washington State Legislature authorized the Trust Land Transfer Program. The legislature funds the transfer of state trust lands with special ecological or social values that have low income potential out of state trust ownership to a public agency that can manage the property for those values. Money from the transfer provides revenue for the trust beneficiaries and is used to buy productive replacement properties that will generate future trust income.

416 acres of the surrounding trust lands were added to Fort Ebey State Park through the Trust Land Transfer program on September 27, 1990, including the former DNR recreation lease area. Combined with protected areas administered by Island County Parks and Recreation, private conservation organizations and the National Park Service (Ebey’s Landing National Historic Reserve), Fort Ebey State Park provides access to many miles of hiking and mountain biking trails through the unusual topography of the ice age kettles. The remaining military structures serve as a reminder of a bygone era of national security.