Fort Flagler Historical State Park History

…a seacoast fortification may be said to have most efficiently performed the function for which it was intended, if it is never called into action at all.

                                                                                  -Eben Eveleth Winslow, US Army Corps of Engineers

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

Indigenous Lands

This park’s location on Marrowstone Island lies within the traditional territories of Coast Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, Lummi Nation, Tulalip Tribes, Suquamish Tribe, Quileute Tribe, and Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. For thousands of years the island and the waters of Admiralty Inlet have provided a habitat for a diverse community of life that forms the basis of their cultures.

Local tribes ceded ownership of the area to the US federal government under duress in the Treaty of Point No Point in 1855, keeping rights to harvest natural resources in their usual and accustomed places, including the lands and waters around Marrowstone Island. After government land surveys were completed in 1859, European-American homesteaders and land speculators acquired some land on the island. On September 22, 1866, President Andrew Johnson signed an executive order withdrawing land at 24 strategic sites throughout the Salish Sea as military reservations for possible defensive fortifications. One of those was a 590-acre military reservation at the northern tip of Marrowstone Island.

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 with Concrete and Steel

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. The military reservation at Marrowstone Island was the first to be developed. Eugene Ricksecker from the US Army Corps of Engineers immediately began survey work at the site, a hard task in the thick brush and old-growth timber. He and his crew worked from five in the morning until eight at night, dragging their instruments and making measurements, sometimes moving along fallen logs four to ten feet above the ground surface.

With plans in hand, the construction contract was awarded on June 22, 1897, to the Pacific Bridge Company of Portland, OR. Under Ricksecker’s close supervision, the project began. Unfortunately, the company had no previous experience with such a large project (28 acres of timber to clear, 178,400 yards of excavation in hard rocky soil, 18,800 yards of concrete to mix and pour), and it proved difficult to retain skilled labor in such a remote location. Many laborers quit after a few days, catching the excitement of the rush to the gold fields of Alaska and Yukon.

At first, there were few labor-saving machines available to aid in the construction. Strong backs, piles of shovels and scrapers and stacks of wheelbarrows were used by the workers to hollow out deep pits for the mortars, backfill the gun batteries to hide their location, build roads and smooth out the final shape of the disturbed earth. Eventually a second-hand steam shovel was acquired by the contractor. Despite the difficulties, the fortifications were officially activated on July 27, 1899, named in honor of Brigadier General Daniel Webster Flagler, who had died four months earlier. Completed, Fort Flagler had 26 artillery pieces: two 12-inch disappearing guns, four 10-inch disappearing guns, six 6-inch disappearing guns, two 5-inch pedestal guns, four 3-inch pedestal guns and eight 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 than the guns at Fort Flagler. They were more accurate as well. In addition, aircraft could travel longer distances and carry heavy bombs. Large guns mounted in open concrete batteries were vulnerable to these new weapons.

The fort remained active, training soldiers for the trenches of Europe in World War I and amphibious landings and maneuvers in World War II and the Korean War. Between active periods, many deteriorating buildings were demolished. New buildings were constructed as needed when activity resumed, leading to a mixture of historic buildings from different periods of the fort’s use. It was permanently deactivated on June 30, 1953, and the remaining armaments were declared surplus. The property was transferred to the General Services Administration in April 1954.

Making a Park

The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission purchased the land under terms of the Federal Lands to Parks Program in five separate parcels between 1957 and 1962. The park was opened for picnics and boat launching in the summer of 1960, and development of campgrounds and trails accessing the various features of the fort followed soon after.

The remaining buildings from the fort were made available for use by organized youth camps. The Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra established a summer music camp in the facility, held each year from 1958 to 1989. Many professional musicians trace their roots to the practice halls of the Marrowstone Music Festival at Fort Flagler State Park.

In 1963 two 3-inch guns were obtained from Fort Wint at Subic Bay in the Philippines, adding a bit of realism to park exhibits. The guns were mounted in Battery Wansboro. In recent decades, several of the former officers’ and engineers’ houses have been refurbished for rental by park visitors.