Events at Fort Steilacoom
EXPERIENCE THE SMELLS, SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF A WORKING FORT
Experience life in the past lane at Fort Steilacoom. The museum offers a selection of annual events, including living history events and lecture series, so that guests may learn more about the history of the fort and its impact on the local community.
2024 Programs
Do you enjoy volunteering for history?
We sometimes hear from people that they’d like to volunteer, whether because they love volunteering, or appreciate Puget Sound history – or something in between.
We ask all prospective volunteers to come by on the first Sunday of the month from 1 to 4, in order to meet some of the current volunteers. It’s free to stop by and say hi!
If you appreciate the history but live outside the region, we certainly appreciate “remote” volunteers – email us to say hello.
Of course, we’re open the first Sunday of every month for tours. Book here.
We are currently organizing a series of talks to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the arrival of the US Army in Washington Territory. Check back here for updates.
1 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024: Annual Meeting and History of Western State Hospital. The Historic Fort Steilacoom Association will host a brief business meeting and then hear a talk from Alexandria Woodruff, a Western State Hospital employee, about the history of the hospital.
4:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024: Christmas at Fort Steilacoom. Living historians will re-enact a 19th Century Christmas season as it might have been celebrated in our buildings 165 years ago. Re-enactors will gather in candlelight to talk, sing, dance and dine as our predecessors did in the first U.S. military post in Puget Sound. Visitors from 2024 will walk past and witness scenes as if the visitors are spirits from the future.
You can read more about the event in last year’s news announcement. The event will sell out. If you’d like to be among the first to know that tickets are for sale, you can join the HFSA or sign up for our free e-newsletter.
We are currently organizing a series of talks to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the arrival of the US Army in Washington Territory. Check back here for updates.
Upcoming talks in our 175th anniversary series:
All meetings will be on Zoom. Do not go to the fort.
- Nov. 21: Stationed at Fort Steilacoom. Historian and longtime fort volunteer Alan Archambault will talk about the soldiers and units that were stationed at Fort Steilacoom
- January TBA: Discovery and Discovery Again: Local historian and longtime fort volunteer Steve Dunkelberger will talk about how Europeans gradually explored Puget Sound before the U.S. Army’s arrival
- Sunday, Feb. 23: Kalapuyans of the Willamette Valley. Oregon State University Asst. Prof. David G. Lewis, PhD, is a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, a descendant of the Takelma, Chinook, Molalla, and Santiam Kalapuya peoples of western Oregon. We at Fort Steilacoom talk and study a lot about what was going on in Washington during settlement; Prof. Lewis, who has a new book out, will talk about what was going on in Oregon during those same years.