Discovery Park in Seattle, Fort Lawton and what is open

Discovery Park, at 3801 Discovery Park Boulevard in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood, is open from 4:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. as of November 2026, according to Seattle Parks and Recreation, which runs it. The Environmental Learning and Visitor Center is closed until summer 2027, and the city says the rest of the park is open as usual. Parking at the beach is the catch: the city is issuing no beach parking permits while the visitor center is shut, so the beach lot is for ADA placards only, and the free beach shuttle that carried everyone else ended its 2026 run on November 1. Readers coming from Enumclaw should sort out the parking before they leave.

Here is the part the park page only hints at. In 1938 the U.S. Army offered all of Fort Lawton, the post this park grew from, to Seattle for $1. The city council turned it down, unsure it could afford to maintain it. That is the version in both the city's park history and HistoryLink. The land had come from Seattle in the first place: in February 1898 the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, a business group, handed the Army 703 acres to get a post on the bluff. The city took it back for a park only in the 1970s, and not without a fight.

Is Discovery Park open?

Yes, the park itself is open, and the city's park page lists hours of 4:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Seattle Parks sets those hours, so the page is the place to check them if they change. The page lists a park phone number, (206) 684-4075.

The closure is the visitor center, the Discovery Park Environmental Learning and Visitor Center. In the city's words, "Discovery Park Visitor Center is closed until Summer 2027. The rest of Discovery Park is open as usual." The city's explanation is that a broken water main flooded the building in early 2025, damaging the basement's mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, which it says need full replacement. Seattle Parks has folded the repair into a larger bundled project, so the date is the city's target, and the park page is where any change would show first.

Where do you park at Discovery Park?

Three lots take general parking, and the beach lot does not. The city lists the North Lot at Illinois Avenue and Texas Way, the East Lot at Discovery Park Boulevard and 36th Avenue West beside the closed visitor center, and the South Lot, entered from 43rd Avenue West and West Emerson Street. The road runs on through the park, but the city says it has no general parking past the East Lot.

The beach lot, at the end of the boulevard by the lighthouse, is the one with the rule. The city's wording: "Parking at the beach level without a permit or ADA placard is not allowed and may result in citation or towing." With the visitor center closed, the city says it cannot hand out beach parking permits at all. The shuttle that bridged the gap ran Thursdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. through November 1, 2026, and the city's page describes it as a summer and fall 2026 service, so a return in another year is not promised. Read the parking page before driving.

Metro buses are the other way in. The park page says Route 24 stops on the southern boundary and Route 33 enters the northeast corner near the North Lot. Check Metro's schedules for current service. From the plateau, the Enumclaw to Seattle bus and train guide covers the first two legs.

What is there to see at Discovery Park?

Per the city, the park holds meadows, sea cliffs, forest groves, active dunes, thickets, streams and two miles of protected tidal beaches, with views of both the Cascade and Olympic ranges. It calls the park a place "maintained in its semi-natural condition."

For a distance, the only figure in the pages read for this guide is old: the City Archives' timeline records that in July 1975 a 2.8 mile Loop Trail was named a National Recreation Trail. The Friends of Discovery Park, a volunteer group, publish the current trail map, which the city's page links. Use that for distances rather than this one.

Can you see the West Point Lighthouse?

From the South Beach Trail, yes, according to the city. The lighthouse was established in 1881 and the park page counts it among the 18 active lighthouses in Washington. HistoryLink gives the details: the light first shone on November 15, 1881, and the tower is a squat 23 feet tall. Seattle's park history adds that in 1985 it became the last lighthouse in the state to be automated.

Whether the buildings can be entered is not stated on the city page, so this guide does not say. For lighthouses that publish tour days, see the Washington lighthouses you can visit guide.

What was Fort Lawton?

An Army post that never became the big installation Seattle expected. The city's park history says it saw long stretches of little use after each world war. The Army named it on February 9, 1900, for Major General Henry Ware Lawton, who had been killed in the Philippines in December 1899, according to HistoryLink. It was a small post for years, and then the world wars made it busy.

In World War II it became a port of embarkation, with 450 temporary buildings. The two sources count the traffic differently. The city says 1.1 million troops passed through during and after the war. HistoryLink counts 793,000 embarkations and 618,000 returning soldiers. The city designated the Fort Lawton Historic District a city landmark in 1988, after a federal lawsuit over demolition that the City Archives dates to 1987 and 1988. HistoryLink puts the district at 25 acres.

What happened at Fort Lawton in 1944?

This is the part of the fort's history that matters on Veterans Day. On the night of August 14, 1944, according to HistoryLink, a group of Black soldiers from two port companies, who had just learned they would ship out, attacked the barracks of Italian soldiers serving in a service unit at the post. The next morning an Italian soldier, Guglielmo Olivotto, was found hanged on the obstacle course. HistoryLink says what happened that night is the subject of considerable debate and draws on the researcher Jack Hamann's book for its account.

At a court martial that ended on December 18, 1944, 28 soldiers were convicted, one in Olivotto's death. More than 60 years later the Army Board for Correction of Military Records found that the prosecutor had not given the defense a key report, HistoryLink says, and the Army apologized at a ceremony at Fort Lawton on July 26, 2008. HistoryLink adds that the Army provided for honorable discharges to replace the dishonorable ones.

Who occupied Fort Lawton in 1970?

On March 8, 1970, according to Seattle Parks, a group led by Bernie Whitebear and Bob Satiacum, with Native people of western Washington, entered the surplus post. The city's page says 100 or more people took part. HistoryLink says military police arrested 72 of them that first day and escorted them off the post, and that the protest at the gate continued for about three months.

The city says the occupation ended peacefully four months later, and that negotiations led to a 99-year lease to the United Indians People's Council for a cultural center. The City Archives dates the agreement to November 1971. The Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center opened on May 13, 1977, and still stands in the park. The city's own pages disagree on the size of the lease: 20 acres on the park page, 17 acres on the history page. The United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, which runs the center, says 20.

The same city history page says the ground itself has an older name, PKa'dz Eltue, meaning "thrust far out." The page says Duwamish, Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot ancestors used the place for between 4,000 and 10,000 years. For the tribe that is Enumclaw's neighbor, see the feature on the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe.

Why is Discovery Park 560 acres when the city got 391?

The city's park page gives 560 acres. The federal government transferred 391 acres to the city on September 1, 1972, according to both the City Archives and HistoryLink. HistoryLink says the park's 1974 master plan called for 534 acres, and the city's landmark page says the Army offered 534. None of the pages read for this guide itemizes the rest. They do record pieces: about 24 acres bought from the Navy in 2005, and a former Army area of temporary buildings, released in 2000, that HistoryLink says added "20-some acres." For anything legal or precise, the acreage is whatever Seattle Parks states on the day you read it.

The land for the post was assembled in the 1890s, years after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, when HistoryLink says Seattle lobbied for an Army post to help a sagging economy.

Before you go

Open the city's Discovery Park page on the morning you leave and read the box at the top. It carries the visitor center status, the beach parking rule and any shuttle notice, and it is the page Seattle Parks updates. Check Metro for the buses. Daybreak Star's visiting hours were not on any page read for this guide, so ask United Indians of All Tribes before planning a stop there. The park is a walk across open bluffs and beaches, so allow for weather and for the tide, which the park pages do not cover.