Fort Steilacoom Park is topic of annual meeting Oct. 15

The Historic Fort Steilacoom Association will host its annual meeting online at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 15.

There will be a brief business meeting where members will elect officers to the board of directors. Then the gathering will quickly move to the topic, “The historic significance of Fort Steilacoom and Fort Steilacoom Park.”

The speaker will be Chris Staudinger, who offers lantern tours of Fort Steilacoom Park. Staudinger, the founder of Pretty Gritty Tours, brings the perspective of someone who has learned over time that the area around Fort Steilacoom and its namesake park is one of the most historically significant locations in Washington State.

Staudinger will talk about the importance of the Fort Steilacoom Historic District from the times that Indigenous peoples gathered there for thousands of years to its more recent history as the center of U.S. settlement and then a major mental hospital. “The way we as Washingtonians treat others and, in turn, determine our own humanity, as been forged on this site,” he said.