Fort Stevens State Park (Battery Russell)

Fort Stevens, at the mouth of the Columbia River, was built in 1863 to defend against Confederate raiders and was in service until 1947; it was fired on by a Japanese submarine in 1942. Today it is a state park with a military museum, and Battery Russell is the concrete gun emplacement from 1904. Visitors and rangers tell of a young soldier who patrols the area at night with a flashlight and vanishes when approached, usually described as harmless.