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The U.S. Army Overlooks Salt Lake Valley: Fort Douglas 1862-1965
THE U.S. ARMY OVERLOOKS SALT LAKE VALLEY FORT DOUGLAS, 1862-1965
by LEONARD J. ARRINGTON and THOMAS G. ALEXANDER
At the outbreak of the Civil War, the federal government became worried about the safety of the Overland Mail route. With the exception of an enclave of Mormons in Utah and miners in several other areas, the United States was essentially two nations. To the east of Utah, the frontier line stood at about the first tier of states west of the Mississippi River; to the west, settlements and states had been created on the West Coast. The connection between these two areas was, at best, tenuous. Although the wires of the transcontinental telegraph were joined on October 24, 1861, they were menaced, as were the Pony Express and Overland Mail, not by dissident Confederates, but by hostile Indians.
The press of wartime conditions forced the government to pull troops from Camp Floyd (renamed Fort Crittenden) in July 1861. In April 1862 President Abraham Lincoln authorized Brigham Young to raise and equip one company of volunteers for 90 days to protect the lines of communication. Led by Captain Lot Smith, a full company of 100 men saw limited service until mustered out in August. This was only a temporary expedient, however, and the War Department soon called upon General George Wright, commander of the Department of the Pacific, to furnish protection for the mail route. Wright decided to establish posts at Simpson's Park, California; Ruby Valley, Nevada; and Camp Floyd, Utah. Under orders from General Wright, therefore, Colonel (later General) Patrick Edward Connor, with 700 men of the Third California Infantry and part of the Second California Cavalry, moved toward Utah. Connor's task was made doubly hard by the belief of federal officials that the mail route was not secure in Mormon hands and that surveillance of the Latter-day Saints was also necessary.
LOCATION OF CAMP DOUGLAS
By early September Connor and his troops had reached Fort Ruby in eastern Nevada, where the colonel left his men to personally investigate the Utah situation. He visited Camp Floyd, then traveled on to Salt Lake City, where he spent September 9 in reconnoitering the Mormon capital. After this visit Connor concluded that Camp Floyd, which was in ruins, was unsuitable for his troops. The owner asked $15,000 for the few buildings remaining, the timber supply at the Cedar Valley post was scarce, and the only redeeming quality was the abundance of grazing land. By this time Connor was also convinced that the Mormons constituted "a community of traitors, murderers, fanatics, and whores," and that unless protection of the Overland Mail route were to be the government's only consideration, a fort near Salt Lake City would be a necessity. Connor then transferred his troops to the Mormon capital where, on September 20, 1862, on a plateau about three miles east of the city "in the vicinity of good timber and sawmills, and at a point where hay, grain, and other produce can be purchased cheaper than at Fort Crittenden," he established camp. At this point, he wrote, "1,000 troops would be more efficient than 3,000 on the other side of the Jordan." Officially established on October 26, 1862, the post was named after Senator Stephen A. Douglas, the "Little Giant" and Lincoln's opponent in the 1860 election.
Because Connor and his Volunteers arrived at Salt Lake City late in the season, they were forced to construct temporary winter shelters. The troops built 32 dugouts, 13 feet square and 5 feet deep, over which they pitched tents for enlisted men. Small buildings of logs and adobe over similar excavations were constructed for the officers. In addition the troops constructed a commanding officer's quarters, a guardhouse, a bake house, a small log hospital with three ward tents, six stables, a blacksmith shop, and a quartermaster building.
After wintering in these temporary quarters, Connor's Volunteers constructed more permanent quarters in 1863. With the exception of the guardhouse, the magazine, and the arsenal, which were of stone, all of the buildings were constructed of wood. Because the Volunteers hauled most of the timber from the canyons, the Army had to pay only for small amounts of lumber, shingles, and nails. The troops built 11 barracks, 85 by 28 feet, each with an open veranda; 8 officers' quarters, 40 by 26 feet, with 8 rooms each; 12 married soldiers' quarters; and a post ice house, coal house, hospital, and wood and hay yards.
CAMP DOUGLAS DURING THE CIVIL WAR
After the establishment of Camp Douglas, Colonel Connor and his men busied themselves with the discipline and control of Indians. Their most important expedition was that which led to the Battle of the Bear on January 29, 1863. Connor believed that the Indians whom he fought there had harrassed the Overland Mail for 15 years and had murdered miners in northern Utah and southern Idaho. Connor's men virtually wiped out a party of more than 300 men, women, and children. This expedition, for which Connor was promoted to brigadier general, was only the most outstanding of a number of forays, most of which took place in 1863, which aimed at quieting the Indian menace to the Overland Mail lines, to prospectors, and to western-bound emigrants. Other skirmishes, led by men from Connor's command, took place in Cache Valley, Skull Valley, Cedar Valley, and Utah Valley.
In the summer of 1863, after the spring expeditions, the general, together with Governors James Duane Doty of Utah and James W. Nye of Nevada, negotiated treaties with many of the tribes. Thereafter, Indian relations in Utah were fairly peaceful until the Black Hawk War began in 1865. Other campaigns in which Connor and troops from Camp Douglas participated, such as the Powder River Campaign of 1865, were generally outside the Territory of Utah.
It has been widely believed that Connor was entirely unjustified in his intense dislike of the Mormons and his desire to keep them in check. One historian has recently pointed out, however, that it was not uncommon for "outsiders" to misinterpret the Mormon doctrine of the Kingdom of God. Certainly, Connor's feelings toward the Saints evince a belief that they (the Mormons) had sought to establish a temporal power to supersede the federal government. Of even greater importance to the general was the aid which Mormons appeared to be giving to the "enemies" of the United States — not the Confederates, to be sure — but the Indians, who to the troops at Camp Douglas, presented the more immediate threat. Numerous reports came to Connor of Mormons giving help to Indians who had been fighting his troops or attacking the Overland Mail lines. The Mormon attitude is easily explained by their theological disposition to respect and be friendly with the Indians and by the necessity of coexisting with those who might represent a threat to them. (This is not to deny that the Mormons may have sought to use the Indians to accomplish desired ends.) But these considerations did not assuage Connor's distrust after he saw great numbers of his men killed and the mail lines disrupted by the same "savages."
Connor's distrust of the Mormons also led him to other actions, such as posting a provost guard in Salt Lake City after he concluded that the Saints had caused the new national currency to depreciate. He removed the guard after General Irvin McDowell, who had replaced General Wright as commander of the Department of the Pacific, feared that trouble might result. Forgetting the cost of transportation from the nearest eastern market, Connor was also outraged by the high prices which he had to pay for goods purchased from the Mormons; and for that reason, he imported most of his supplies from the East. Obviously suspicious, Connor found symptoms of disloyalty not only among the Mormons, but also among overland emigrants, employees of the Overland Mail lines, and other Gentiles who interfered with federal activities.
On September 17, 1863, less than a year after the California Volunteers had established camp in Utah, argentiferous ore was discovered by "Mormon boys" in Bingham Canyon and brought to General Connor for assay. Under Connor's direction a claim was filed, and the West Mountain Quartz Mining District was organized. This was the first recorded mining claim in the Territory of Utah, and the first mining district to be formally organized and recorded. Due to the failure of the legislature to pass a law permitting the general incorporation of mining companies, however, a new company, the West Jordan Mining Company, was later incorporated under the laws of the State of California and began working the claims.
These and other opportunities induced Connor to propose a "peaceful" solution to "the Mormon problem" by promoting the development of mining in Utah. He instructed his officers to lead patrols into various areas for the express purpose of prospecting for precious minerals in the hope that Gentiles attracted by the mines
The prospecting ventures took miners into areas stretching from southern Utah to southern Idaho.
In an attempt to secure the federal position in the West and to aid settlers, Connor also promoted other ventures. He sent troops to garrison such posts as Fort Bridger to help secure the Overland Mail route. He also took a group of Morrisites, an apostate Mormon sect, to Soda Springs, Idaho, where he established Camp Connor to guard the point at which the road from Salt Lake City north intersected the Oregon-California Trail. His troops there discovered a new trail which cut about 70 miles from the old overland route. Connor also proposed an abortive scheme to supply Camp Douglas in winter time by opening a route to the Colorado River at Fort Mojave, Arizona.
The life of the frontier soldier during the Civil War, however, was not all fighting Indians, establishing new posts, and outwitting Mormons. Camp Douglas, even in "war-time," was not without its diversions. The troops built a theater which was remodeled in the fall of 1864, in which national theatrical companies such as the Wanton Stock Company played. Between acts the men could buy pies, cakes, candies, fruits, and soft drinks at refreshment stands. General Connor, himself, apparently preferred to go into the city to see performances in the Salt Lake Theatre. On Saturday evening girls from the city were invited to participate in dances held at Camp Douglas Hall. Soldiers could ride the four-horse, doubledecker bus to Salt Lake City, then a frontier metropolis of 20,000, though it is doubtful that the $16.00 per month which recruits received went far. Among other diversions were meetings of the lodge of the Good Templars, a temperance organization. Still, camp life was no continual round of enjoyment; activities such as inspections, woodcutting details, and twicedaily drills kept the troops on their toes.
FROM THE CIVIL WAR TO THE SPANISH AMERICAN WAR
In November 1865 General Connor relinquished command to Colonel Carroll H. Potter, and by the end of the winter of 1865 almost all of the California and Nevada Volunteers had been mustered out. This evacuation left the post garrisoned almost entirely by ex-Confederates, or "Galvanized Yankees," of the Sixth Volunteer Infantry. Late in the spring of 1866, the Southerners left for Fort Bridger, and the Eighteenth U.S. Infantry took command of the post.
Because the buildings had been hastily constructed, they remained in serviceable condition for only a few years. In November 1866 General James F. Rusling, while conducting an investigation of western posts, commented on how poorly the barracks looked. When they started to fall apart, the troops tried to brace them with iron rods, but this expedient proved inadequate. Three, new 100 by 50 foot storehouses — two of them with basements — were under construction, but Rusling recommended that the deteriorated buildings be rebuilt with stone from the canyons to the east.
Although the government did not act upon Rusling's suggestion until 1874, a new barracks building was added in 1870, at a cost of $7,500, and some other improvements were made. The commander, General Henry A. Morrow, ordered the construction of a graded and graveled road from the Camp to Salt Lake City limits, and a bridge was built across a ravine which separated the Camp from the city. A park was constructed in front of the headquarters building, and an avenue lined by rows of Lombardy poplar, locust, box elder, and mulberry trees led to the edge of Lake Morrow which C. R. Savage designed for the general.
These improvements aided the Camp's general appearance, but by the summer of 1872 General E. O. C. Ord reported that the quarters were "old and dilapidated . . . [and] scarcely habitable on account of the logs in that damp winter climate having rotted." He asked for an appropriation of $30,000 to construct new stone quarters. By the summer of 1873, provision had been made to inaugurate construction, and by October 1874 work had begun on a number of stone buildings, including five barracks valued at $30,000. By 1876 the post had been completely rebuilt in stone — much of it consisting of the famous red sandstone in Red Butte Canyon. In 1877 it was reported that Colonel John E. Smith and the Fourteenth Infantry, then stationed at Douglas, enjoyed one of "the largest, best built, most creditable posts in the Army." In December 1878 the Division of the Missouri, to which Camp Douglas had since been reassigned, redesignated the post as Fort Douglas.
Though the War Department undertook some subsequent construction, the post deteriorated to some extent between the mid-seventies and the outbreak of the Spanish American War. While the Post Exchange was reported in 1896 to be a "model in its arrangements and operations," arrangements had to be made in that and the following year to make some greatly needed repairs on the water and sewage systems. Most of the structures built in the late 1880's and the early 1890's — including officers' and non-commissioned officers' quarters, an NCO club, a post chapel, and several other buildings — were frame rather than stone.
During the Civil War some 700 men had been stationed at the Camp. By 1866, a year after the war, the post housed only 200, composing three small companies of infantry. The post also employed 151 civilians, most of whom were engaged in the construction of the warehouses, at a monthly cost of $8,830. In the early 1870's, when Indian difficulties threatened, Mormon-Gentile conflicts were numerous, and the transcontinental and north-south railway lines were completed, Camp Douglas assumed new importance. Some 421 troops, consisting of six companies of the Fourteenth Infantry, were at the post during those years. In 1891 the entire Sixteenth Infantry regiment was stationed at Fort Douglas. It is probable that, with the new importance, the number of civilians employed by the post in these years grew also, even though Rusling had recommended that the number be cut to 20 or 25.
After the Civil War, of course, the Douglas soldiers had to cope with periodic Indian outbreaks. After the extinguishment of the small Indian farms created by Brigham Young and other agents during the 1850's, the government began, in 1865, to remove the Ute Indians to the Uintah Reservation. Unfortunately, niggardly congressional appropriations for supplies caused the Indians to return to make depredations upon the herds and crops of settlers in central Utah, and troops were sent to return the Indians to the reservation. By the mid-eighties, the situation at theUintah Reservation had calmed somewhat, but Indians from Colorado and Arizona invaded southeastern Utah. Troops from the Fort were sent to Montezuma Creek to protect lives and property in San Juan County.
As railroad facilities were extended into the Mountain West, the centrally located Salt Lake post began to absorb other nearby installations. In 1882 General George Crook, commander of the Department of the Platte, and General P. H. Sheridan of the Division of the Missouri, both recommended that Fort Douglas be made one of the principal posts in the mountain area. Railroads had made it possible to concentrate troops at central locations, and as Crook said, all "that we can expect to do with our present meager military establishment is to leave at extreme frontier posts garrisons large enough to guard supplies and to hold their own until re-enforcements can be hastened forward from the reserve posts." In 1883 troops were removed from Fort Hall to Fort Douglas, and other posts such as Forts Thornburgh and Cameron were also abandoned in favor of the centrally located Salt Lake post.
Difficulties with the Mormons were also anticipated. As with General Connor, General Rusling believed that the Latter-day Saints were disloyal — or at least should not be given aid and comfort, and he recommended that the government favor Gentile merchants and freighters with its business, even when more costly than "Mormon business." In 1870 troops were sent to establish Fort Rawlins near Provo, but they were withdrawn after several drunken soldiers outraged local citizens. During the polygamy prosecutions in 1888, a guard was stationed in downtown Salt Lake City until ordered withdrawn by Commanding General John M. Schofield.
Before the extensive construction program of the mid-seventies, life at Camp Douglas was anything but idyllic. Living in poorly constructed and insufficiently heated barracks, the soldiers had to cope with disease and vermin, contracted illnesses, had to recuperate with inadequate health facilities, and ate improperly cooked or handled food. In fiscal 1872, of the 364 men at the Camp, fully 216 suffered from typhoid fever or some similar disease; 230 had diarrhea or dysentery; 54 suffered from rheumatism; and 101 had contracted bronchitis. This, it should be noted, was at a base on the eastern outskirts of the largest city in Utah, and a full two years after the driving of the Golden Spike.
Part of the reason for the unfavorable conditions may have been the high cost of coal and other supplies. During the Civil War coal cost $45.00 per ton, and even in 1866 the Army paid $30.00 per ton. The coming of the railroad in 1869 helped mitigate the situation, of course, and by 1874 the price of coal ranged from $8.00 to $10.00 per ton. Fort Douglas had the responsibility of furnishing supplies for soldiers at Fort Bridger as well as those on its own post. Rusling estimated that contracts for supplying food, clothing, and fuel for the troops cost the government $150,000 yearly.
This figure included a profit of about $50,000 to the contractors, most of whom were Mormons. Fort Douglas also had the distinction in 1879 of being the terminus of the first demonstration telephone in Utah. The other end of the line was at Salt Lake City.
THE SPANISH AMERICAN WAR AND AFTER
Most troops were withdrawn for active duty at the outbreak of the Spanish American War. When the War Department mobilized the Utah Light Artillery, these Utahns trained at Douglas. In 1900 only two companies garrisoned the Fort, but in 1901 a board of officers recommended that the Fort be utilized as a permanent military post, and the installation returned to regimental status.
Life at the Salt Lake camp just after the turn of the century was a far cry from the vermin-infested existence of the late sixties. In 1902, with the war in the Philippines over and peace coming to the islands, the Twelfth Infantry was transferred to Fort Douglas and Fort Duchesne. Two batteries of field artillery already stationed there made for lively competition with the foot soldiers. Football contests took place between the soldiers and students at the University of Utah and the Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University). Some soldiers, who could stretch their $13.00 to $18.00 per month, went to Saltair; others frequented the red-light district on Commercial Street in the center of town. Some took hunting trips to places like the Strawberry Valley, and officers and enlisted men arranged dances on alternate Friday nights. The regimental band attracted civilians to the Fort for Sunday afternoon concerts. Some soldiers married Salt Lake City girls, and some who were discharged settled in the city and secured jobs. Both officers and enlisted men preferred to wear civilian clothes while in town so they could be absorbed into the population.
The troops also had more unpleasant duties to perform, but these tasks were lightened some by humorous incidents, one of which occurred at the target range, north of the post. The soldiers had to fire across the streetcar track which circled around the north end of town and came into the north end of the Fort. During target practice danger flags were put up, and a sentry gave the signal to cease firing and told the motorman to hurry. On one occasion an enlisted man from Company D fired an experimental shot in front of the streetcar, missing it by a mere 10 feet. The motorman jammed on the brakes, the front wheels jumped the track, and the car slid into a ditch. It took two hours for the company to lift the derailed car back on the track.
In addition to recreational and post activity, soldiers could improve their minds. In 1904 for instance, six enlisted men took advantage of school facilities maintained at the post during the year, and the post library contained 1,349 volumes and subscribed to seven magazines and four newspapers. If the soldier happened to be dissatisfied with the magazine selection at the library, he could visit the Post Exchange, which in 1911 did a $26,000 business.
To accommodate the lively soldiers and keep the post up-to-date, on recommendation from the War Department the installation was improved to some degree between 1904 and 1916. Additional new buildings included a BOQ (bachelor officers' quarters), several buildings around the Post Exchange, a post hospital (constructed in 1908-09), a hospital steward's quarters, six barracks for 176 men each, and a band barracks for 33 men. In 1910 and 1911 electric lights and central steam heating were installed.
WORLD WAR I
In the fall of 1916, as part of the national preparedness campaign, the government opened a civilian training camp at Fort Douglas. Charges were made at other training camps that the Army was operating gentlemen's vacation clubs—but this was not the case at the Utah fort. The camp attempted to develop a democratic spirit by assigning men to companies according to age. The Oregon Short Line sent about 100 men who wanted to be in the same company, but that was not allowed. Men of relative wealth, such as Thomas Kearns, Jr., shared barracks and facilities with others less affluent.
At the outbreak of the war, the Twentieth Infantry which had been sent to the border to fight Mexicans was again stationed at Fort Douglas, but even with these seasoned soldiers there were too few officers to handle the 4,000 to 5,000 new recruits who poured into the camp for training. In addition the soldiers experienced a shortage of bedding and housing facilities. Contractors, who had fabricated the Hotel Utah and other buildings in downtown Salt Lake City, were employed to construct barracks and other buildings at the Fort to house the three regiments stationed there. A general hospital was established at the post in 1918, and new construction was authorized and partly completed at that facility, though it was stopped in 1919.
During World War I Fort Douglas also played host to some 331 German prisoners of war, most of whom had served in the navy. The prison barracks were surrounded by two barbed wire fences 15 feet apart, behind which the prisoners carried on their camp duties. The Germans made numerous attempts to escape by bombing, tunneling, and cutting wire. In December 1917, after one party was discovered tunneling out, post officers called in experts to determine the character of the subterranean soil. After the soil scientists had obtained their information, the guards simply tapped the Germans on the shoulder, thanked them, and returned them to the compound.
People in Salt Lake City did their share to make life away from home bearable for the "doughboys" at Fort Douglas. Local citizens established the Salt Lake Army Club, with chaperoned Comrade Girls. Soldiers were invited to homes for dinner, and the grill of one of the local hotels which had been abandoned when the state went "dry" was renovated and furnished with a library, lounges, and billiard tables. The soldiers themselves had spent something like half a million dollars in Salt Lake City by August 1917.
THE INTERWAR PERIOD
After the Armistice the ensuing cutbacks made it appear that Fort Douglas would follow Forts Cameron, Thornburgh, and Duchesne (which had been abandoned in 1912) into oblivion. Instead of fading away with the Indian frontier as the other posts had done, however, for a few years it stood as a monument to American isolationism. During 1921 no troops were garrisoned at the post because legislation was pending before Congress which contemplated its complete abandonment. The legislation did not pass, and Fort Douglas became once more operative on June 5, 1922.
In June 1922 the famous Thirty-eighth "Rock of the Marne" Infantry, which had fought so valiantly in France in 1918, came to the Fort to remain until the Army transferred it to Texas in 1940. Under the administration of General U. G. Mac Alexander, Colonel Howard C. Price, and those who followed, numerous improvements were made during the twenties and thirties at the installation. A golf course and polo field were laid out, and local sportsmen, together with soldiers, formed the Fort Douglas Golf Club. In 1930 a new stone club house was erected just off the post to prevent embarrassment to the Army when drinks were served during Prohibition.
Beginning in 1928 the government made extensive improvements on the reservation. Under the direction of the Corps of Engineers, the Utah Construction Company built the Red Butte Dam, at a cost of $370,000. A modern water and sprinkling system was installed in 1930 which, for the first time, made possible the beautiful parade grounds which can now be seen at the installation. In 1931-32 the government constructed six officers' quarters and five NCO quarters, all of red brick, at a cost of more than $149,000. Another barracks was completed in 1939 at a cost of $299,000. In 1932 the War Department theater was completed at a cost of $20,000. In 1937 a modern bathhouse and swimming pool were constructed. During the depression a number of walks, curbings, new roadways, and landscape improvements were made. In cooperation with Utah State University, Colonel Price inaugurated the planting of 500 elm trees.
In 1930, under Colonel Price, a group of 180 applicants began training at Douglas under the Citizens' Military Training Camp (CMTC) program. Under this program, men between the ages of 17 and 28 trained in military science and tactics during the summer months with regular Army officers as instructors.
During the depression the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) undertook various projects at the installation. Indeed, in April 1933, the CCC opened headquarters of the Fort Douglas CCC District at the post. The district consisted of 38 camps served by a total of 100 commissioned reserve officers and 6,000 enrollees. Members of the Corps engaged in forestry, fire fighting, improvement of grazing lands, soil conservation, national and state park service, and general policing duties. They received wages which ranged from $30.00 to $45.00 per month and had opportunities to learn trades and attend classes in elementary or advanced subjects.
Community relations during the early thirties were excellent. Unlike the Connor period the commanding officers were on excellent terms with prominent local citizens and church leaders. With the aid of the community, a monument to General Connor was erected in the cemetery. The Thirty-eighth Infantry Band was famous for its concerts and participation in parades and celebrations. The city, in an emergency, would lend its road grading equipment to the post. The troops and band from Fort Douglas also participated in the dedication of the Salt Lake Airport and the Hogle Zoo. Under the direction of the post veterinarian, the Army Remount Service placed prize stallions on various farms throughout Utah to help upgrade the quality of stock which the Army later planned to purchase. Troops from Fort Douglas also participated in the Uintah Basin Industrial Congress which met annually at Fort Duchesne.
The early 1930's were a period of transition in the Army and at Fort Douglas. Horse-drawn vehicles were still the rule, but motor vehicles began to appear in increasing numbers. On Red Butte Dam the contractor still used horses and scrapers, but limited use was also made of steam shovels and even a half-track. The soldiers on encampments presented an interesting sight with the ancient and the modern working together.
Expenditures at the installation gradually increased during the 1930's and with them the impact of the post on the community. In 1930 the Fort spent approximately $625,000 on payroll for enlisted and command personnel and $1.4 million for post maintenance and special projects. In that year the Army spent $170,000 for food, $26,500 for forage, $4,500 for electricity, $12,300 for the CMTC camp, $30,000 for wages for civilians, $370,000 on Red Butte Dam, $72,000 for other construction, and $40,000 for conversion from coal to gas. In 1937, as the second World War neared, the War Department was expending $15 million a year at Fort Douglas, including Army disbursements, CCC, and WPA funds.
In 1941, just prior to the outbreak of World War II, Fort Douglas underwent an extensive construction program. Enoch Chytraus and Son of Salt Lake City obtained the contract for the construction of a new hospital addition consisting of a surgeon's building, two barracks, a recreation building, an officers' quarters, and enclosed passageways, for $87,763. In addition the WPA made $100,000 worth of improvements on the hospital and $70,000 on the hospital annex. Later, in September 1941, WPA Director Darrell J. Greenwell announced a $295,450 remodeling and general improvement project which included remodeling of the buildings; extension and relocation of gas, water, sewer, telephone, and power line facilities; and general grading, leveling, and landscaping of the grounds.
THE SECOND WORLD WAR
As the United States began its defense build-up in anticipation of World War II, the Air Corps stationed a reconnaissance squadron, two bomber groups, an air base group, and a headquarters group at the Fort. With the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, West Coast installations became vulnerable. Thus, on January 3, 1942, less than a month after the attack, the regional headquarters or Ninth Service Command which directed operations, not only on the coast, but in all the states from the Rocky Mountains westward, moved to Fort Douglas. From then until March 1946, Fort Douglas was the military nerve center of the western United States.
In addition to its administrative functions, Fort Douglas was the first Army post which many youths from the Rocky Mountain States saw as they were inducted. The Army had established a reception center at the Fort as early as December 1940. Housed at first in a tent village, the center was moved to frame buildings on the southwestern part of the reservation in February 1941. When the Army announced, in May 1945, that all men who had accumulated enough points or who were over 42 years of age could be discharged, men from camps in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and Montana went through the Fort's separation center. During the war Fort Douglas also played host to Army Service Forces units from the Army Finance Office and served as an ASF personnel center.
As the headquarters of the Ninth Service Command, Fort Douglas directed the repair and salvage of military vehicles and implements in all Western States. When the major emphasis of the war shifted to the Pacific Theatre, long lines of jeeps, cargo trucks, tractors, trailers, and cars poured into Douglas maintenance shops. In the single month of November 1944, Ninth Service Command shops repaired 5,454 vehicles; and the following month they serviced a total of 31,187 small arms, pieces of artillery, and sighting and fire control instruments. Owing to their combat use, many of the vehicles and instruments which were returned to Douglas had to be sold as surplus or salvage. In December 1943, for instance, the Ninth Service Command disposed of cars and trucks in competitive bidding which brought $ 126,415.
From November 1941 to May 1947, Fort Douglas was an Army Finance Office, subordinate to the chief of finance, United States Army. As such, it handled financial matters for all military installations in Utah, including Hill Air Force Base, Ogden Arsenal, Wendover Air Force Base, Kearns Air Force Base, Tooele Ordnance Depot, Bushnell General Hospital, Dugway Proving Grounds, Deseret Chemical Depot, Utah Ordnance Depot (Remington Arms Plant), the Japanese-American Relocation Center at Topaz, Camp W. G. Williams, and the Ninth Service Command headquarters. In the fiscal year 1942, for instance, the finance office at Douglas distributed $97,666,585. In the months of July and August 1942 alone, the Fort paid out more than $40 million. By 1944 the total disbursements leveled out at a relatively meager $12 million per year. To speed the operation the base used a checkmaker which prepared 30,000 checks an hour and which had a self-contained accounting system which controlled every check. One new employee, evidently not realizing that the machine recorded each check it printed, after making several mistakes ripped up the faulty checks and threw them in the wastebasket. When a financial error was discovered, the embarrassed employee was obliged to return to the office, retrieve the checks, and paste them together to make the books balance.
As with many military installations in Utah and elsewhere, Fort Douglas ran short of personnel. In 1944, for instance, the Fort needed 200 employees to fill vacancies caused by the release of able-bodied men for combat. Under these conditions the administration was obliged to keep working conditions as pleasant as possible in order to retain workers who might otherwise have been attracted by non-essential private industry. An employee suggestion award system was inaugurated which, while giving the employees prizes, also saved the Army time and money. In addition Walker Bank and Trust Company opened a service branch in 1943 for the convenience of Fort Douglas employees.
THE POSTWAR PERIOD
Within a year after the end of the war, Fort Douglas began to look more and more like a bow and arrow in the age of missiles. The Ninth Corps headquarters returned to the Presidio of San Francisco in 1946, and the Fort closed its separation center. While the post still inducted troops from Utah, Nevada, Montana, and Idaho, its other activities were curtailed. The Fort retained its finance office, reserve and National Guard units, a field intelligence office, an Inspecting General's Office, a regional film library, a surplus property disposal office, and the intermountain civilian personnel office. In May 1947 the finance office moved to Utah General Depot. The Fort continued to service some satellite stations to which it sent supplies, food, hospital needs, pay, and post exchange goods. Among these were 20 recruiting stations for the Air Force and Army in Utah and southeastern Idaho.
In November 1946 the Fort picked up some of its lost activities when it became headquarters of the Utah, Idaho, and Montana Military District. In this process the Army abolished the former Utah Military District. The separation center which had been closed was again reopened. By February 1947 the Fort had released, from its old and new separation centers, a total of 56,910 enlisted men and women and 7,373 officers.
Buildings made vacant by the removal of military activities were used to house other government agencies: the Veterans Administration, the Bureau of Mines, the Forest Service, the War Assets Administration, some activities of the University of Utah, the Utah National Guard, the Bureau of the Census, a Naval Recruiting unit, a unit of the Geological Survey, and the Farmers Home Administration.
By February 1948 the government had decided that Fort Douglas was entirely too small for its needs. Not even a single division could train at the post, and the base was no longer on the outskirts of Salt Lake City where it could expand and take up new property; the city had grown around it. On March 15, 1948, a large part of the property was turned over to the War Assets Administration for disposal. By the end of March, the WAA announced that the 6,700-acre watershed and a 7-acre tract in the southern section of the post would be turned over to the Department of Agriculture for use by the Forest Service. The Veterans Administration received 25 acres for a new hospital. The Bureau of Mines got 10 acres, and the Navy received 7 buildings and a 7-acre tract of land. Of the government agencies which received the subdivided land, the National Guard obtained the most, with a total of 33 buildings, including pistol, rifle, skeet, anti-aircraft, machinegun, and shotgun ranges and a gas chamber.
The Army retained for itself the older buildings, a 100-acre tract for a new post cemetery, and its reservoir in Red Butte Canyon. By October 1949 the Fort consisted of only 7,286 acres. A total of 253 acres had been turned over to the Veterans Administration; and, in addition, the city of Salt Lake purchased 46 acres and the University of Utah received 299. The University property included 61 of the post's buildings and the golf course.
The Navy decided to establish a training center in the buildings assigned to it. By February 1949 about 750 men were training at the Naval Reserve Center, using $700,000 worth of equipment including radar, electronic devices, and machine tool equipment.
By 1949 Fort Douglas was a mere shadow of its once important position; in October of that year only 150 men were stationed at the base.
Although the government abandoned Fort Douglas as an active military training base immediately after World War II, its other functions have made it more important since the Korean War. Reserve units have increased their activities at the base, and as the only Class I installation in the Intermountain area Douglas has been the only Fort which gave full logistic support to reserve and ROTC units in Utah, Idaho, and Montana. In 1953 the Department of Defense established a chaplains' school for reserve units, and training of all reserve units since that time has continued at an increased rate. In October 1959 Brigadier General H. L. Ostler said it would cost about $24 million for the government to duplicate the facilities then used by the reserves at Fort Douglas. The reserve units grew so quickly that the National Guard had to expand off the post to make room for them.
To accommodate the growth of the reserve units, the government added new buildings to the Fort. In April 1961 the post opened a new $388,000 center to house an intelligence detachment, a hospital unit, a quartermaster group, an engineer company, and an Army garrison unit. In 1956 the post chapel was renovated and modernized at a cost of $5,000.
Since the loss of the post property immediately after World War II, the Fort's size has remained relatively stable. In 1959 the post declared 82 acres surplus so the city could construct a junior high school and administration building plus a playground and park. At about the same time, however, the University of Utah's request for 95 more acres was denied. The commander explained that it would have required $650,000 for the Army to replace the buildings, particularly the maintenance shops which the University wished to take over. In 1962, however, the post did grant 142 acres to the University for its medical college.
During the Korean War, the post underwent no general buildup as it had during the second World War. It continued to serve as an induction center for Intermountain men, but there was no great increase of administrative activity. As a matter of fact, the Fort was required to institute a cost-conscious program in an attempt to live within its budget. The employees were told not to chew the ends of their pencils, to use them at least three inches, and to avoid the excessive use of electricity.
In May 1954 the Defense Department returned the finance office to Fort Douglas, and the post has been an important agent for Army affairs in the Intermountain area since that time. As a gauge to this activity, one can examine fiscal 1960, when total disbursements for the year were $18,235,423. This amount included more than $2 million for military and civilian payroll and more than $1.5 million for the Army reserve and $9.8 million for National Guard pay and support. These disbursements were spent in the entire area served by the post, which included Idaho, Utah, and Montana.
In recent years the installation has played a role much different from its earlier activities. In June 1962 the Defense Department established the Deseret Test Center under the command of General Lloyd E. Fellenz, former commander of the U.S. Army Chemical Center at Edgewood, Maryland. At the center representatives of the Navy, Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, together with officers of the United States Public Health Service, about 50 military and 100 civilians in all, perform tests in conjunction with research work being carried on at Dugway Proving Ground.
THE FUTURE
On November 19, 1964, Colonel Joe Ahee, commander at Fort Douglas, announced that the facility would be inactivated, and that some 450 civilian and 500 military jobs, a payroll of about $5.87 million annually, and an operating budget of about $22 million would be affected. The phaseout was to be completed by June 1967. At first it appeared that Fort Douglas would be lost to Utah forever. On closer examination, however, it became apparent that the phaseout of the installation was not exactly that. In December the Army announced that only 46 military and 41 civilian jobs were to be abolished, and that an additional 30 military and 51 civilian personnel would be transferred out of Utah.
Many of the activities currently being carried on at the Fort will remain there, others will be transferred to other Utah installations, and some will be transferred to other posts in the West. The administrative and logistical support for Class I Active Army units and activities, and support for USAR, ROTC, and National Guard activities, are to be reassigned to Fort Lewis, Washington, and the Presidio of San Francisco. Tooele Army Depot is to gain the medical, dental, and veterinary services now housed in Fort facilities. Some of the activities will simply be removed to other facilities in Salt Lake City. After careful investigation with a view to use of the facilities for state functions, Governor Calvin L. Rampton concluded that most of the installation would probably be retained for military and other federal functions. The Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare have both expressed interest in buildings and Warehouses. Another tenant likely to stay is the Deseret Test Center.
Thus, it appears that citizens of Utah will be able to retain at least a part of the rich historical heritage which has been associated with Fort Douglas. Though the economic impact of the post was probably considerable during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the symbolic impact of the installation has probably been its greatest affect on Utah. Fort Douglas will always stand as a monument to the non-Mormon contribution to Utah's development. Connor and his men made the Overland Mail routes safe from Indians and began large-scale prospecting in Utah. Since the Connor era, the Fort has stood as a symbol of federal authority and the federal contribution to Utah. During the late nineteenth century, the installation was one of the main guardians against Indian outbreaks on the western frontier. After the Indian menace subsided, the post housed one regiment after another of federal troops who served in the Philippines, on the Mexican Border, in France, and later in Germany and the Pacific. Since the second World War, the Fort has symbolized the pervasive influence of the military activities of the federal government in the Mountain West. As the activities of the government have expanded, so have the number and type of federal agencies using facilities at Fort Douglas. If nothing else, the Fort will continue to serve as a reminder to citizens of Utah that their state has contributed significantly to the military program of the United States, and that the government, in turn, has contributed markedly toward the economic development of Utah.
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