PORT TOWNSEND — What started out as a dream came to fruition over the weekend at Fort Worden State Park.
“I wish everyone who worked on this project could be here today,” said Laurie Medlicott on Saturday. “This day and May 10 have been the best.”
Medlicott is the volunteer coordinator for Fort Worden’s yearlong centennial celebration — which wrapped up over the weekend — and the force behind creating the Fort Worden History Center, which opened last spring.
Originally intended to be a place where memories of fort life would be recorded for posterity, Medlicott said she hoped it would also become a place where people would share stories with each other.
That kind of exchange happened for the first time last weekend when veterans and others who once called the fort home gathered at the center’s new location, Building 262, on the hill behind park headquarters.
Originally located in one end of a former barracks, the center has found a more permanent home where its collection of regimental photographs and military memorabilia can remain on display.
The space is smaller than the original, but more intimate, with a sitting area and table where people can sit around and reminisce.
“So far, we haven’t told any lies,” Rick Martinez said. “It will get to that if we keep on talking.”
Martinez, a retired judge, has returned to live in Port Townsend, where he spent his teenage years while his father was stationed at the fort from 1948 to 1950.
—————-
The rest of the story appears in the Tuesday Peninsula Daily News. Click on SUBSCRIBE, above, to get the PDN delivered to your home or office.