Did you know where Fort Worden (in Port Townsend) got its name?

We all saw Officer and Gentleman filmed there, right? And perhaps we’ve been there, right?

But did you know it was named after U.S. Navy Rear Admiral John Lorimer Worden (1818-1897), commander of the USS Monitor during the Civil War?? In 1862, commanding the Union’s only warship of this class, USS Monitor, Worden challenged the Confederate vessel Virginia, a converted steam-frigate that had sunk a Union blockader and damaged two others. After a four-hour battle, both ships withdrew, unable to pierce the other’s armour.

But why was a fort 3000 miles from any event in his life, and where he had never been, named for him???? Politics??