This park consists of slightly more than one hundred eleven acres with fifty camp sites and forty picnic sites east of Port Orchard on Clam Bay in Puget Sound. It has 3,400 feet of beach front property.

This military establishment near the entrance to Port Orchard was named June 12, 1903, for Colonel George H. Ward who was wounded in the battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War and subsequently died of his wounds. A report dated June 12, 1903 noted that the Fort consisted of three hundred seventy-five acres on Bainbridge Island and three hundred seventy-five acres on the mainland on Rich’s Passage.

The fort was built as part of the coastal defense system to protect lower Puget Sound from hostile attack especially the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton. The larger forts closer to the open sea were Forts Flagler, Casey, and Worden and later Fort Ebey. Fort Ward had its own post office between July 15, 1903 and June 30, 1930.