Fort Worden

Fort Worden, a decommissioned 1902 military fort in Port Townsend, is one of America's most haunted campgrounds. A real 1908 murder (confirmed by Supreme Court records), a mysterious drowning in Alexander's Castle cistern, and a guilt-ridden sergeant ghost at the Guard House anchor the fort's ghost stories. Paranormal investigators captured EVPs here in January 2024. You can book overnight stays in the same buildings.

Three soldiers died inside Battery Kinzie in 1921 when a shell misfired in the underground gun emplacement. On foggy nights at Fort Worden, people still hear screaming from inside the concrete chambers.

Fort Worden sits on the northern tip of the Olympic Peninsula in Port Townsend, Washington, built between 1897 and 1920 as part of the "Triangle of Fire" that defended Puget Sound alongside Fort Flagler and Fort Casey. At its peak, the installation functioned as a small city: 228 main buildings including barracks, a hospital, a bakery, a chapel, a guardhouse and jail, a power station, and a wharf. The U.S. Army closed the fort as an active installation in 1953. Washington State acquired the property in 1973 and opened it as a public park. The soldiers left. Whatever lives in those buildings did not.

Paranormal activity has been documented in more than 25 buildings across the grounds. The first verified reports surfaced after the park opened in August 1973, and the volume of encounters has only grown as the property aged and more people spent nights in the old structures.

Building 202, the former barracks, hosts the ghost known as Private James. He died during a training accident in 1906 when artillery equipment malfunctioned. Employees and overnight guests see a man in an early 1900s military uniform standing at attention near the windows. Sarah Mitchell heard boot steps on the empty upper floor in 2019. John and Karen Walters documented knocking on their bedroom door at 2:30 a.m. in 2020 that continued for ten minutes straight. Nobody was in the hallway.

The old base hospital, now part of the Centrum arts center, has a different kind of presence. A nurse in a white uniform walks the wards, checking on patients who are not there. She dates to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, when Fort Worden became an overwhelmed treatment facility. The hospital wards are quiet now. The nurse walks them anyway.

At the guardhouse near the main entrance, witnesses describe a figure in an officer's uniform walking the perimeter. Sources identify him as Captain William Morrison, who served from 1904 to 1908 and died suddenly. His patrol route follows the same path night after night.

But Battery Kinzie is where the fort's haunting reaches another level. The underground gun battery, built into the hillside and accessed through dark concrete corridors, produces reactions even from skeptics. The 1921 accident that killed three soldiers left more than structural damage. David Chen photographed a uniformed figure standing in the battery doorway in March 2021 that was not visible to the naked eye when the photo was taken.

Investigators have taken the fort seriously. Ghost Adventures filmed at Fort Worden in 2015, with Zak Bagans describing overwhelming anxiety inside the structures. Equipment malfunctions were widespread. The Pacific Northwest Paranormal Society conducted an investigation in October 2018 and recorded what they described as WWI-era military radio communications through EVP equipment, along with temperature fluctuations of 25 degrees. In January 2024, Ghostly Activities led a seven-person team through the Bricks Building and Alexander's Castle. In Unit 16A of the Bricks Building, where Captain Frank Thornton took his own life in 1911, the team captured shadow figures in the living room and phantom footsteps between 4 and 5 a.m. Their SLS device registered what appeared to be a child spirit, possibly connected to the building's later use as a juvenile detention center.

The late evening hours between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. produce the densest activity, with midnight especially active around the old barracks and hospital. Campers have reported the smell of burning coal, burning rubber, and hot sulfur near the front entrances. The moans echoing through dark hallways are most audible on cloudy days.

Fort Worden operates as a state park where you can book an overnight stay in the same buildings where these encounters have been recorded for fifty years. The structures are old, concrete, and largely unchanged. Battery Kinzie sits open to anyone willing to walk into the darkness. The Triangle of Fire defended Puget Sound from 1897 to 1953. The fort has been a state park for over fifty years now. The screaming in Battery Kinzie predates both.