Among New Hampshire's state parks and historic sites, Fort Stark in New Castle is unique. Located on a peninsula overlooking the Piscataqua River, Little Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean, the former military installation dates back to the colonial period, with remnants of a World War II-era fort.
While it’s a park for play today, the military history of this place still dominates the setting. The first fort was built here in the 1740s, and then expanded during the Revolution. It remained a military installation until well into the 20th century.
Walking up a set of WW II-era stairs to the top of the embankment, where one of the massive guns once stood overlooking the sea, I met up with Doc Fletcher, a state parks employee. He and his wife lead tours at the Fort Stark visitor center and maintain the grounds. He trained for a time here as a Naval reservist in the 1970s.
"You'll see as we get to the top of the fortress here, you look out and you can see the reason why the harbor needed to be protected,” he says.
None of the fort's guns were ever called upon to fire on an enemy; but training could cause a stir. I ask Doc what it must have been like when the largest of the weapons was loaded up.
“The first time they fired,” he tells me, “They touched it off and the people came running over there and said, ‘Don't do that again!’ They broke every window and the china in the Wentworth by the Sea Hotel."
Today, things are a lot quieter at Fort Stark.
George Bald, former commissioner of the state Department of Resources and Economic Development, calls Fort Stark one of the gems in the state parks system.
“Obviously, Hampton Beach and the Flume are big parks, but this is a park that is really sweet,” he says.
But Fort Stark didn’t always feel this welcoming. After it was decommissioned and turned over to the state in the 1980s, there was little public money available for upkeep. So the park languished for years. That changed in 2007.
“For a while, it was quite hard to maintain a good presence here and a lot of stuff got overgrown,” Bald recalls. “People were complaining that the state wasn't doing enough, and so it really became that we had to do something, but fortunately there's a wonderful volunteer organization in New Castle.”
I met two of those volunteers at the park on my visit, Jane and Sam Paige:
“We got rid of the poison ivy, saved the pine trees and the apple trees, and then the guys had their saws," jane Paige say. "And I was one that just dragged branches into a pile and the fire station people would come and burn them and huge, huge piles and because it wasn't being kept at all.”
That work helped clear the way for Fort Stark’s transformation into a place to have fun, rather than prepare for battle.
Jason Goddard of Portsmouth grew up playing at Fort Stark. He says it was the setting for countless exciting — and sometimes dangerous — childhood adventures.
“There wasn't a fence to be seen, not a door was welded shut yet, and this fort was at our disposal, and it was like living in the Goonies movie,” Goddard recalls. “We would be going through tunnels with torches that we made. We'd be sliding down cables to lower levels and doing stuff that if our parents were aware, they would have absolutely had heart attacks.”
Today the park is safer — and serene. On the day of my visit, a few folks browse through the small museum of artifacts at the visitor center. A couple in wet suits are launching kayaks off the beach. The slowly crumbing and graffiti-covered pill-boxes and batteries of the old fort are quiet, but still keep vigil over the shore. For George Bald, all that seems just right.
“Anyone can come,” he says of Fort Stark. “It doesn't matter if you're a multi-millionaire or you're making minimum wage, it gives you access to a spectacularly beautiful spot.”
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