Fort Douglas (initially called Camp Douglas) was established in October 1862, during the
American Civil War, as a small military garrison about three miles east of
Salt Lake City,
Utah. Its purpose was to protect the overland mail route and telegraph lines along the
Central Overland Route. It was officially closed in 1991 pursuant to
BRAC action. A small portion of the fort remains in active military use as the Stephen A. Douglas Armed Forces Reserve Center, although it is expected the reserve center will be relocated in the next few years, after the state of Utah provided funds for the purpose in 2023.
Most of the fort's former property has been turned over to the
University of Utah and many of its buildings are preserved and used by the university for a variety of purposes. The Fort Douglas Military Museum is housed in two former barracks buildings. The fort was designated a
National Historic Landmark in 1975, for its role in the Civil War and in furthering the settlement of Utah.
History
Establishment
Early in the Civil War, the threat of violence increased with the withdrawal of Federal troops from the West for use against the
Confederate States of America. Colonel
Patrick Connor was ordered to reestablish a military presence with volunteer soldiers in the
Utah Territory. He selected a site east of
Salt Lake City, and Camp Douglas, named after Senator
Stephen A. Douglas
Stephen Arnold Douglas (April 23, 1813 – June 3, 1861) was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. A senator, he was one of two nominees of the badly split Democratic Party for president in the 1860 presidential election, which wa ...
, was officially established there on October 26, 1862. Connor's men were Union volunteers from both California and Nevada. The post served as headquarters for the
District of Utah in the
Department of the Pacific.
Regular Army arrives, 1866–1874
Following the end of the Civil War, between 1866 and 1898, the fort was part of the
Department of the Platte
The Department of the Platte was a military administrative district established by the U.S. Army on March 5, 1866, with boundaries encompassing Iowa, Nebraska, Dakota Territory, Utah Territory and a small portion of Idaho. With headquarters in Om ...
. Its importance increased when the
Union Pacific and
Central Pacific railroads joined rails at
Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869, completing the
Transcontinental Railroad.
1878–1902
Through the efforts of Utah's U.S. Sen.
Thomas Kearns, the camp became a regimental post and was renamed "Fort Douglas."
World War I
During World War I, the fort was used as an camp during
German American internment, and as a camp for
Imperial German Navy POWs. One of the crews kept there was from the
SMS ''Cormoran'', which had left the
German colony of
Qingdao
Qingdao (, also spelled Tsingtao; , Mandarin: ) is a major city in eastern Shandong Province. The city's name in Chinese characters literally means " azure island". Located on China's Yellow Sea coast, it is a major nodal city of the One Belt ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, at the beginning of the war and stopped at
Guam in December 1914 to refuel and take on provisions. Denied the coal needed for their boilers, the German captain reluctantly submitted to detention. When the United States entered the war on the Allied side in 1917, the crew were made prisoners of war and were sent to Fort Douglas.
Interwar period
In 1922, the fort became the base of the
38th Infantry, which remained there until August 1940.
World War II
Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Fort Douglas became an Army Air Field in conjunction with
Salt Lake City Municipal Airport and housed the
7th Bombardment Group operating
B-17 Flying Fortress
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...
es. However, Fort Douglas proper was taken over by the Army ground forces when fears of a Japanese attack of the U.S. mainland caused the
9th Service Command Headquarters to move from Utah to the
Presidio of San Francisco
The Presidio of San Francisco (originally, El Presidio Real de San Francisco or The Royal Fortress of Saint Francis) is a park and former U.S. Army post on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, and is part o ...
.
Final years, 1945–1991
After
World War II, the Army began disposing of its land, transferring it to the
University of Utah, located adjacent to it. However, it maintained Army Reserve functions there for decades, notably with the
96th Army Reserve Command under the command of Maj. Gen. Michael B. Kauffman, who had spent much of his Army career at the fort and was instrumental in keeping it alive well past its announced closing in the 1970s. The Fort Douglas Military Museum is housed in a building named after Maj. Gen. Kauffman, who founded the museum and built it into one of the United States' premier military museums featuring exhibits from all branches of the Armed Services.
Between 1962 and 1973, Fort Douglas was the site of the
Deseret Test Center
The Deseret Test Center was a U.S. Army operated command in charge for testing chemical and biological weapons during the 1960s. The Deseret was headquartered at Fort Douglas, Utah, a former U.S. Army base.
History
Progress toward standardizin ...
(Buildings 103 and 105) with the responsibility of evaluating
chemical and
biological weapons, although no tests were actually performed on the base.
On October 26, 1991, the fort closed officially, though the
Utah National Guard
The Utah National Guard consists of the:
* Utah Army National Guard
**19th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
**65th Field Artillery Brigade
**85th WMD CST
**97th Troop Command
**115th Engineer Group (CBT)
**204th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade
**211th ...
maintained control of the museum, and the 96th ARCOM received the parts of the fort that were not deeded to the university.
1991–Present
Armed Forces Reserve Center
A small portion of the southwestern section of the original fort remains in use by the
U.S. Army Reserve (USAR). This portion of the fort is designated the Stephen A. Douglas Armed Forces Reserve Center. The reserve center consists of 51 acres, and includes the historic Soldier's Circle, along with several sub-installation buildings.
The center hosts offices, along with training and support space for 'headquarters staff for two Army Reserve commands, and staff from other Army, Navy and Marine Reserve units'. There have been some attempts to relocate the center to allow the University of Utah to grow its campus. A law requires the property be given to the University of Utah, without charge, once the military declares it surplus.
In 2023, the
Utah State Legislature allocated $100 million, via Senate Bill 2, to facilitate the relocation of the reserve center from Fort Douglas to land near the Utah National Guard’s
Camp Williams
Camp W. G. Williams, commonly known as Camp Williams, also known as Army Garrison Camp Williams, is a National Guard training site operated by the Utah National Guard. It is located south of Bluffdale, west of Lehi, and north of Saratoga Spri ...
in
Bluffdale. The appropriated funds were to be used to acquire property, and for the design and construction of facilities at the new site. A groundbreaking ceremony for the new reserve center at Camp Williams was held in August 2024, which, at the time, was expected to be completed in 2026. After the relocation is complete, the historic reserve property will be transferred to the university for continued development of their campus.
=Commands hosted
=
As of 2023, the commands hosted at the reserve center include:
*
76th Operational Response Command
The 76th Infantry Division was a unit of the United States Army in World War I, World War II and the Cold War. The division was inactivated in 1996 and has been reconstituted as the 76th US Army Reserve Operational Response Command in 2013.
Wor ...
*
807th Medical Command (Deployment Support)
The 807th Medical Command (Deployment Support) (MC(DS)) is headquartered at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, Utah and manages all the Army Reserve deployable field medical units west of Ohio. There are over 11,000 Soldiers that comprise 116 subor ...
University of Utah Campus
In 1991, the University of Utah received a significant portion of the fort's remaining property. During the
2002 Winter Olympics
The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Salt Lake 2002 ( arp, Niico'ooowu' 2002; Gosiute Shoshoni: ''Tit'-so-pi 2002''; nv, Sooléí 2002; Shoshoni: ''Soónkahni 2002''), was an internation ...
held in Salt Lake City, much of the university's campus was used to host events. The
Olympic Organizing Committee and university built the
Olympic Village to house participating athletes on former fort property; the village housing now serves as on-campus housing for university students. Stilwell Field is used as a parking lot during special events, such as football games. The Officers' Club building is used as a conference center by the university, and several of the officer's quarters house university departments (such as the American Indian Resource Center).
There has been some controversy surrounding the university's stewardship of the historic fort property. In 2015 it was revealed that during construction work to upgrade the university's electrical system, buried period artifacts had been removed and discarded at a landfill.
Cemetery
A cemetery was established in 1862 about a mile south of the original parade grounds. In 1864, the soldiers at the post improved the cemetery significantly. They erected a monument in the center dedicated to the memory of the soldiers killed during the
Bear River Massacre. They also constructed a red sandstone wall around the cemetery, with a steel gate located at the north end. The following year, a smaller monument was added for Utah Gov.
James D. Doty
James Duane Doty (November 5, 1799 – June 13, 1865) was a land speculator and politician in the United States who played an important role in the development of Wisconsin and Utah Territory.
Early life and legal career
A descendant of ''Mayflo ...
following his death and burial in the cemetery. Later, the cemetery was expanded to accommodate a larger number of burials, not only from the fort, but also from
Fort Cameron
Fort Cameron was a United States Military installation, located east of Beaver, Utah.
History
The fort opened in 1872 and was active for 11 years until 1883. The fort was originally established to protect settlers of Central Utah from local Amer ...
following its closure. A special section of the cemetery was also added for the German prisoners of war who died here during World War II.
The Fort Douglas Cemetery continues to be an active federal military cemetery, actively maintained. A list of cemetery burials is available through the Utah History Research Center'
cemetery database The cemetery was damaged during the
2020 Utah windstorm
The 2020 Utah windstorm was a hurricane-force windstorm that struck the U.S. state of Utah in the early morning of September 8, 2020. It is estimated that the windstorm had reached a 12 rating on the beaufort scale.
Damages
Nearly 200,000 home ...
, during which hurricane-force winds knocked down large trees, damaging headstones and other historic features of the cemetery.
See also
*
List of National Historic Landmarks in Utah
*
*
Camp Floyd
*
List of military installations in Utah
Current installations
* Camp Williams - National Guard training site operated by the Utah National Guard.
*Dugway Proving Ground - Allied biological and chemical weapon defense systems testing.
**Michael Army Airfield - Airport at Dugway Proving ...
*
Statue of Patrick Edward Connor
Notes
Sources
*Madsen, Brigham D. ''The Shoshoni Frontier and the Bear River Massacre'' (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1985)
*Hibbard, Charles G. ''Fort Douglas, Utah: A Frontier Fort'' (Vestige Press, 1999)
External links
Historic Fort Douglas University of Utah (''archived website'')
a story map created by the Utah Division of State History and Fort Douglas Military Museum
Fort Douglas Military Museum Association
*
*
{{Authority control
American Civil War army posts
Douglas
Douglas may refer to:
People
* Douglas (given name)
* Douglas (surname)
Animals
*Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking
*Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil W ...
Military and war museums in Utah
Museums in Salt Lake County, Utah
University of Utah
Closed installations of the United States Army
Formerly Used Defense Sites in Utah
Utah in the American Civil War
Utah Territory
1862 establishments in Utah Territory
Douglas
Douglas may refer to:
People
* Douglas (given name)
* Douglas (surname)
Animals
*Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking
*Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil W ...
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Utah
Internment of German Americans
National Historic Landmarks in Utah
National Register of Historic Places in Salt Lake City
Historic American Buildings Survey in Utah
University and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Utah
World War I prisoner-of-war camps in the United States
World War I internment camps