Victorian Seaports & Waterfront Art

Tour the Rothschild House Museum, then stroll Water Street's historic storefronts and maritime galleries.

Explore restored military buildings and coastal gun emplacements from the 1890s, then hike bluff trails overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca with sweeping water views and mountains.

Walk the beach to the 1914 Art Deco lighthouse at the very tip of the Quimper Peninsula, where the Strait of Juan de Fuca meets Admiralty Inlet. The surrounding Fort Worden State Park — former setting for the film An Officer and a Gentleman — covers 434 acres of restored coastal artillery fortifications from the 1890s-1920s. The Centrum arts campus on the grounds hosts Jazz Port Townsend and other festivals; its gallery and performance spaces are open to visitors year-round.

Browse the Port Townsend Arts Guild cooperative gallery on Water Street, where over 60 regional artists show paintings, sculpture, printmaking, and ceramics. The Victorian uptown bluff above Water Street has a second cluster of independently run galleries housed in the ornate 1890s commercial buildings that gave Port Townsend its reputation as the 'City of Dreams' — the speculative boom-era architecture is itself a cultural artifact. The Jefferson Museum of Art and History nearby documents the town's maritime and Victorian heritage.