From the interview with Lucinda Hall of Tacoma, WA conducted by phone from the Fort Worden History Center on March 15, 2005 by John Croghan.  Ms. Hall’s father was a cook at the Juvenile Diagnostic and Treatment Center, her family moved to Fort Worden in 1969 and left three years later when the Center closed.  Here she relates some childhood misadventures:

“We used to go down to the hangar (now McCurdy Pavilion) and play on the Rhododendron Festival floats that were stored there….The bunkers were our play house, we used to sleep in there and play, yeah, we had good times. We used to go up on Artillery Hill above the barracks that we lived in.  I remember the time the woods behind our house caught on fire.  Kids were playing with matches.  The fire truck had to come out.

…The road from Artillery Hill came down and around to the barracks.  There were a couple of us who got hurt on that road. I was riding my bike down that very steep hill and a stick got caught in my spokes. I went flying down the hill. I had head injuries.  My brother was with me. A lady who lived in the houses over there came over to help and took me home.  My parents were gone, my older brother was the only one who was home. My younger brother thought I was dead there was so much blood.

…Then there was a pole right by the building there.  We used to use that hill to slide down on inner tubes when it snowed.  The kid next door hit the pole and broke his leg.”