Camp Douglas was established in October 1862, during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

, as a small military garrison about three miles east of

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

, to protect the overland mail route and telegraph lines along the

Central Overland Route The Central Overland Route (also known as the "Central Overland Trail", "Central Route", "Simpson's Route", or the "Egan Trail") was a transportation route from Salt Lake City, Utah south of the Great Salt Lake through the mountains of central N ...

. In 1878, the post was renamed Fort Douglas. It was officially closed in 1991 pursuant to BRAC action and most of the property was turned over to the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

. Many of the fort's buildings are preserved and used by the university for a variety of purposes. The Fort Douglas Military Museum is housed in two former barrack buildings, and a small section of the original post is still used by the

U.S. Army Reserve The United States Army Reserve (USAR) is a reserve force of the United States Army. Together, the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard constitute the Army element of the reserve components of the United States Armed Forces. Since July 20 ...

. The fort was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places liste ...

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 The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...

. Colonel Patrick Connor was ordered to reestablish a military presence with volunteer soldiers in the

Utah Territory The Territory of Utah was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 4, 1896, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Utah, the 45th state ...

. He selected a site east of

, and Camp Douglas, named after Senator Stephen A. Douglas, 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 During the American Civil War in the early 1860s, the District of Utah was a subordinate district of the U.S. Army's Department of the Pacific. The district was composed of territorial areas that later became parts of the modern U.S. states of Id ...

in the

Department of the Pacific The Department of the Pacific or Pacific Department was a major command (Department) of the United States Army from 1853 to 1858. It replaced the Pacific Division, and was itself replaced by the Department of California and the Department of Or ...

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 Oma ...

. Its importance increased when the

Union Pacific The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pac ...

and Central Pacific railroads joined rails at

Promontory Summit Promontory is an area of high ground in Box Elder County, Utah, United States, 32 mi (51 km) west of Brigham City and 66 mi (106 km) northwest of Salt Lake City. Rising to an elevation of 4,902 feet (1,494 m) above sea ...

, Utah, on May 10, 1869, completing the

Transcontinental Railroad A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single ...

1878–1902

Through the efforts of Utah's U.S. Sen.

Thomas Kearns Thomas Kearns (April 11, 1862 – October 18, 1918) was an American mining, banking, railroad, and newspaper magnate. He was a US Senator from Utah from 1901 to 1905. Unlike the predominantly Mormon constituents of his state, Senator Kearns wa ...

, the fort became a regimental post.

World War I

During World War I, the fort was used as an internment camp for German citizens who lived in the United States, and it was also a POW camp for

Imperial German Navy The Imperial German Navy or the Imperial Navy () was the navy of the German Empire, which existed between 1871 and 1919. It grew out of the small Prussian Navy (from 1867 the North German Federal Navy), which was mainly for coast defence. Wilhel ...

prisoners. One of the crews kept there was from the SMS ''Cormoran'', which had left the German colony of

Tsingtao 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 List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

, at the beginning of the war and stopped at

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...

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 9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and ...

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 ...

Final years, 1945–1991

After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the Army began disposing of its land, transferring it to the

, 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 standardizing ...

(Buildings 103 and 105) with the responsibility of evaluating

chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., w ...

and

biological weapon A biological agent (also called bio-agent, biological threat agent, biological warfare agent, biological weapon, or bioweapon) is a bacterium, virus, protozoan, parasite, fungus, or toxin that can be used purposefully as a weapon in bioterroris ...

s, 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 **211t ...

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 United States military. 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.

=Commands hosted

= As of 2021, 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. ...

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 subo ...

University of Utah Campus

In 1991 the University of Utah received much of the fort's former 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 internationa ...

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 An Olympic Village is an accommodation center built for the Olympic Games, usually within an Olympic Park or elsewhere in a host city. Olympic Villages are built to house all participating athletes, as well as officials and athletic trainers. Afte ...

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 The Bear River Massacre, or the Engagement on the Bear River, or the Battle of Bear River, or Massacre at Boa Ogoi, took place in present-day Franklin County, Idaho, on January 29, 1863. After years of skirmishes and food raids on farms and ranc ...

. 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 hom ...

, during which hurricane-force winds knocked down large trees, damaging headstones and other historic features of the cemetery.

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

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 ...

American Civil War army posts

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

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 World War I internment camps