Battery Kinzie (Port Townsend)

Two 12" disappearing carriage guns were mounted here from 1910 to 1944.

Battery Kinzie was the last fortification built in Puget Sound defenses before World War II. It was also the most powerful batteries. Construction began in 1908, some 10 years after the building of heavy gun batteries on the high ground above the Point Wilson sand spit. Battery Kinzie was intended to solve several weaknesses in the original fortification plan. It added two 12-inch guns to the modest number of four already in the defenses. It was located where it could protect the entire entrance of Admiralty Inlet from shore to shore. Its beachside position allowed it to cover the waterway below the fog that often lay just above the surface of the water.

[Source: Nearby historical marker in Fort Worden State Park]