In 1973, a car carried two men through a windy, rainy day from Olympia to Port Townsend, Washington. As it crested the hill above Fort Worden State Park, the sun broke through the clouds. In that instant, the white-washed barracks and officers’ houses of the abandoned Army post were lit up against scuttling grey clouds beyond.

For one of those men, that moment was a revelation. It would change his life and the lives of thousands of artists who would teach and learn in those same buildings over the next 50 years. Joe Wheeler knew immediately that Fort Worden—then almost empty—was the right place to launch a long-imagined center for life-long learning and creative discovery. By the end of 1973, that idea was called Centrum. In the months that followed, Centrum started bringing to life the programs that continue today.