Fort McClellan Post Historic District
Calhoun County, AL
Listed: 11/08/2006
The Fort McClellan Post Headquarters Historic District is significant under National Register Criterion A and C. Historically, the district served as the primary headquarters, officers' quarters and permanent barracks core of Fort McClellan, a 45,680-acre U.S. Army facility established as a National Guard Training camp in 1917 and upgraded to a permanent fort in 1929. Closed in 1999, Fort McClellan was a major military installation for more than eighty years during which time it was also an integral part of the economy and the community character of the City of Anniston. Generations of American men and women received their military training at McClellan and the fort's trainees have fought in every military conflict from World War I through the present. During World War II alone, almost one-half million soldiers were trained at McClellan. Architecturally the district is representative of the development of military facility planning in the early 20th century, a time during which "an outstanding group of city planners, architects and landscape designers who were trained in the principles of the City Beautiful and Garden City movements" were employed to create military installations that met high standards for both functionality and aesthetics. This attention to design detail coupled with McClellan's natural setting at the base of the Choccolocco mountain range combined to earn the fort the reputation for being "the military showplace of the South." The combination of function and aesthetics was carried throughout the Post Headquarters Historic District and many of its individual contributing resources are excellent examples of period military design. The period of significance for the district extends from 1930 through 1941 and reflects the construction dates of its earliest and latest contributing extant buildings.
The Fort McClellan Post Headquarters Historic District includes sixty-three contributing resources that date from 1930 to 1941. As a group these buildings formed the headquarters, officers' quarters and permanent barracks core of the former military base. The design and layout of the district's resources are consistent with the overall planning that typified the fort's development during this period. The Historic Resources of McClellan are significant in community planning and development as an important early example of the application of community design principles to standardized military construction. This 1930s breed of military posts was a deviation from previous patterns of grid development, although McClellan's World War I heritage also had an impact on the shape it was to take. The intervening period of neglect during the 1920s, a result of stringent federal cutbacks, was to be followed in 1926 by the largest military construction appropriation since the war. Major General B. Frank Cheatham, the Quartermaster General, began his program of nationwide post improvements in the late 1920s with an outstanding group of city planners, architects and landscape designers who were trained in the principles of the City Beautiful and Garden City movements. These expenditures to create a permanent peacetime military establishment came later to Fort McClellan than to its regional counterparts such as Fort Benning in Georgia, but they soon earned it a reputation as the military showplace of the South. During the Depression, the well-funded construction programs were replaced by assistance channeled through New Deal social programs, and these buildings also very much define the character of fort.
Fort McClellan Post Historic District
Calhoun County, AL
Listed: 11/08/2006
The Fort McClellan Post Headquarters Historic District is significant under National Register Criterion A and C. Historically, the district served as the primary headquarters, officers' quarters and permanent barracks core of Fort McClellan, a 45,680-acre U.S. Army facility established as a National Guard Training camp in 1917 and upgraded to a permanent fort in 1929. Closed in 1999, Fort McClellan was a major military installation for more than eighty years during which time it was also an integral part of the economy and the community character of the City of Anniston. Generations of American men and women received their military training at McClellan and the fort's trainees have fought in every military conflict from World War I through the present. During World War II alone, almost one-half million soldiers were trained at McClellan. Architecturally the district is representative of the development of military facility planning in the early 20th century, a time during which "an outstanding group of city planners, architects and landscape designers who were trained in the principles of the City Beautiful and Garden City movements" were employed to create military installations that met high standards for both functionality and aesthetics. This attention to design detail coupled with McClellan's natural setting at the base of the Choccolocco mountain range combined to earn the fort the reputation for being "the military showplace of the South." The combination of function and aesthetics was carried throughout the Post Headquarters Historic District and many of its individual contributing resources are excellent examples of period military design. The period of significance for the district extends from 1930 through 1941 and reflects the construction dates of its earliest and latest contributing extant buildings.
The Fort McClellan Post Headquarters Historic District includes sixty-three contributing resources that date from 1930 to 1941. As a group these buildings formed the headquarters, officers' quarters and permanent barracks core of the former military base. The design and layout of the district's resources are consistent with the overall planning that typified the fort's development during this period. The Historic Resources of McClellan are significant in community planning and development as an important early example of the application of community design principles to standardized military construction. This 1930s breed of military posts was a deviation from previous patterns of grid development, although McClellan's World War I heritage also had an impact on the shape it was to take. The intervening period of neglect during the 1920s, a result of stringent federal cutbacks, was to be followed in 1926 by the largest military construction appropriation since the war. Major General B. Frank Cheatham, the Quartermaster General, began his program of nationwide post improvements in the late 1920s with an outstanding group of city planners, architects and landscape designers who were trained in the principles of the City Beautiful and Garden City movements. These expenditures to create a permanent peacetime military establishment came later to Fort McClellan than to its regional counterparts such as Fort Benning in Georgia, but they soon earned it a reputation as the military showplace of the South. During the Depression, the well-funded construction programs were replaced by assistance channeled through New Deal social programs, and these buildings also very much define the character of fort.