Narration:

Nestled at the base of the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains is a place that has reflected the history of our nation while it has forever changed the landscape of the Intermountain West.

Fort Douglas began as a federal camp ominously perched over the valley settled by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It hastened the demise of native Americans throughout the West. It was a strategic Union outpost, located along the path that linked California Gold to the nation's capitol. It was a place where thousands American military heroes were recruited, trained and dispatched throughout the world to fight in five major wars, protecting the freedom of the United States of America.

It was a prison for people who were feared at times when national security was threatened. It was a place that brought men and women together for a single cause, and home to countless army brats who grew up playing under its shady trees. It was the final resting place for enemies and brothers alike.

Weakened after years of neglect and military downsizing, Fort Douglas has recently been revitalized by the University of Utah. Its Heritage Commons is a place for students from throughout the world to live as they study at the premiere Western research institution. And it will host top athletes from around the globe who will compete in the 2002 Olympic Winter Games and Paralympic Games. Now launching its next chapter of history, Fort Douglas remains forever linked to its dynamic military past.

"The Spirit of Fort Douglas" was made possible by the George S. and Delores Doré Eccles Foundation and the C. Comstock Clayton Foundation.

Narration:
At the onset of the Civil War in 1861, federal troops stationed in the Utah Territory at Camp Crittenden were called East for active duty.

Camp Crittenden was located forty-five miles southwest of Salt Lake City. It had been established three years earlier by General Albert Sidney Johnston. But when soldiers left to join the war between the states, the camp was abandoned. This defensive vacuum left the overland stage and the telegraph lines vulnerable to attacks by the indigenous peoples of the region.

Chuck Hibbard:
"Well, the troops were withdrawn in the spring of 1861 leaving no military in what is now Utah or, territory and that included half of Nevada at the time and part of Wyoming and some of Colorado. And uh, the Indians became bolder. Uh, also hungrier, the white man was ruining his living. So they were actually starving. So with the withdrawal of troops why the the uh, Overland Trail, which is the old Pony Express Trail and the stage line, uh, was threatened and President Lincoln called for volunteers and he asked the Governor of California to furnish Calvary and Infantry to protect the trails through Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and so forth.

Narration:

Although it was thousands of miles away from the Civil War Battlefields, the Overland Trail was important to the Union war effort.

It was the thoroughfare used for transporting gold and silver from California to fund the union war effort. President Abraham Lincoln knew that any impedance to this cash flow - either from Indian attacks or the Confederates - would directly impact the Union soldiers on the battlefields.

Lincoln's call for volunteers to protect the Overland Trail was answered by Patrick Edward Conner. The 41-year-old soldier had proven himself a hero at the Battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican-American War. Connor was wounded in combat and discharged at the rank of Captain. He then joined the California Gold Rush and remained active in the military.

On July 5th 1862, Connor received his orders and began to move the California Volunteers from Sacramento across the desert of Nevada to the Utah Territory.

Hibbard:
"He uh, got under way in July of 1862 with about 800 troops and 55 heavy wagons, crossing the desert. The temperature supposedly reached 120 degrees. Now he was a very strict task master. He had a parade or an inspection every night. The men liked him, you know, he was one of them: he'd been a private and been in the gold rush. And he got to as far as Ruby Valley in Nevada where he stopped to build a small Fort called Ruby, Fort Ruby"

Brigham Madsen:
" he left his troops at Fort Ruby and came on alone in the stagecoach to just reconnoiter the Salt Lake area. And he was so bitterly anti-Mormon and wrote to his superior officer: 'The Mormons are nothing but a bunch of traitors, murderers and whores.' And he said, 'We've got to do something about this, not only to keeping the trails clear of Indian attacks, but these Mormons are traitors. We have to be careful about them too. We've got to watch them.'"

Narration:
Colonel Connor, an Irish Catholic immigrant, was suspicious of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly referred to as the Mormons. He disliked their practice of polygamy and, above all, questioned their loyalty to the Union. So instead of stationing the volunteers at the abandoned Camp Crittendon, he had his own agenda.

Hibbard:
"He decided that he was not going to reestablish Fort Critendon for two reasons. One, he didn't like the site. He wanted something closer to Salt Lake City as he said, what was a thousand troops on the east side of the Jordan River were much more effective then three thousand troops on the other side in looking after the Mormons. Now his job was not to keep an eye on the Mormons, and at one time he was specifically reprimanded for getting involved in that kind of politics. His job was to protect the Overland Mail and Telegraph Route."

Narration:
While Connor distrusted the Mormons, they in turn doubted the intentions of his federal troops. The Mormons had been persecuted for their religious beliefs…They fled West after witnessing their church founder Joseph Smith die at the hands of an angry mob in Nauvoo, Illinois. Mormon leader Brigham Young suspected Connor's troops were coming to enforce the Morrill Act, an 1862 Federal law that banned polygamy and limited church ownership of property. To avoid occupation by armed federal troops, Young volunteered to protect the trails with his own forces. In a telegram to Utah's representatives in Washington, he suggested:

"The militia of Utah are ready and able, as they have ever been, to take care of all the Indians, and willing to protect the mail line if called upon to do so."

When news reached Salt Lake City that Connor was not going to reestablish Camp Crittenden, but would instead settle much closer to the city, anticipation mounted for a battle between the Mormons and the California Volunteers.

The Volunteers expected a confrontation at the Jordan River, where they thought Young's troops would forcibly resist if they crossed the stream. John A. Anderson, a chaplain attached to Connor's command, recorded the tension surrounding the Jordan River Crossing:

"If our troops are to march on United States territory wherever the Government sends them, and those who resist their march because of polygamy, are really traitors as those who resist because of slavery, and are to be dealt with as such. This command from the highest to the lowest is disposed to treat the Mormons with true courtesy and the strictest justice, so long as they remain friendly to the government; but the moment they become traitors the river Jordan will become as acceptable to us as the Potomac, for we will be fighting for the same precise principle - the flag and national existence - as our eastern brethren."

Narration:
The California volunteers crossed the Jordan River without incident and advanced closer to the pioneer settlement.

The next day, when the troops marched through the Salt Lake City streets lined with onlookers, it was said the they were met with "neither cheers nor jeers."

They stopped before the mansion of the territorial governor Stephen S. Harding, who advised Connor and his men:

"I believe the people you have come amongst will not disturb you if you do not disturb them in their public life and in the honor and peace of their homes; and to disturb them you must violate the strict discipline of the United States Army, which you must observe and which you have no right to violate."

Sufficiently warned, Connor and his men continued their march two-and-a-half miles east of Salt Lake City, to the slope between Emigration and Red Butte canyons - not far from where Brigham Young had viewed the valley for the first time and declared,"This is the place."

There, on the 26th of October 1862, they activated their camp, and named it after Steven A. Douglas, the recently deceased Senator from Illinois who lost the race for president against Lincoln.

But winter was quickly approaching, and the California Volunteers had to start building their quarters quickly.

Tom Carter:

"they dug partially subterranean, almost dugouts, that had log, maybe two or three feet up and they were covered with tents. And then by that next summer they changed to log and a little bit of adobe. I think some of the main buildings, like the officers quarters, commanding officers quarters, the surgeon and the hospital, were adobe and the rest of them were log.

Hibbard:

"The officers and men lived in these dugouts. They built two or three permanent buildings, stone, the Guard House was stone. According to Colonial Connor they lived very comfortably. Of course, he lived downtown in a home. [laughs] He didn't live on the Post. That gave them quarters. Almost immediately started sending out parties against the Indians.

Narration:
The Northwest Shoshone, the Piute, and Goshute Indian tribes had populated the Great Basin for thousands of years. But when pioneers settled at the base of the Wasatch mountains, they usurped the rich grasslands used by these tribes for hunting game and gathering food.

Madsen:
"The Mormon pioneers, settlers came in and took over the best springs and creeks and so on. And so the Indians had a terrible dilemma. In the winter - they'd do their best in the summertime to get along - but in the wintertime, all they could do was come around and beg at Mormon homes for food, because there just - or attack immigrant parties and get food. It was, as I say, just an awful dilemma for them. It was no-win situation."

Narration:
Starvation drove the Indians to desperation. The Northwest Shoshone had resorted to harassing Mormon settlers and raiding emigrant parties and stages for food. In the fall of 1862, members of the Northwestern Shoshone tribe killed a ten-man mining party en route between Montana and Salt Lake City. In response, the chief justice of the Utah territory issued a warrant for the arrest of Bear Hunter, the tribe's chief, along with his subchiefs.

Madsen:

"Well, Connor was looking for an excuse. What he wanted to do was make an example of some group of Indians so that all the other Indians of the Great Basin area would understand that they hadn't better fool around with Connor and his volunteers, that they meant business."

Narration: In January, Connor decided to launch an offensive on the Winter camp of the Northwestern Shoshone on the confluence of Battle Creek and Bear River, just north of Preston, Idaho. He hired Orrin Porter Rockwell - the notorious Mormon gunslinger and religious zealot - to serve as a guide for the volunteers on their march to the tribal winter dwelling.

Hibbard:
"Colonel Connor devised a scheme to surprise the Indians. He sent a company of infantry out ahead. They marched openly during the day. And this was to make the Indians believe that there, only a small force was coming up there. And then at night he marched with his Calvary and he had about 300 men altogether.

Narration:
It was the morning of January 29, 1863. The volunteers launched their assault on the entrenched Indians across the bitter cold Bear River. Initially, the Indians succeeded at repelling Connor's men, but the flanking attack by the volunteers transformed the fight into a massacre. The troops ruthlessly killed the disorganized Indians, killing men women and children.

Madsen:
"It was a terrible butchery. At about eight o'clock the real battle was over. Connor just moved across the river to take care of his wounded and just let his troops go - do anything they wanted. Some of them raped the Indian women. They killed some of the Indian infants, who had lost their mother. They bashed them in the head with axes and so on, and just slaughtered them. It was a terrible, brutal thing. And it was Connor's responsibility. He could've stopped at any minute. He didn't - he didn't stop it. He just let the men have their way and do what they wanted to do."

Narration:
The California Volunteers suffered 22 deaths. As for the Shoshone, the numbers vary. Officially, Connor reported 224, while civilian observers who visited the battle site the next day counted 368 Indian bodies. When the troops returned to Fort Douglas, they boasted of their victory by prominently displaying the scalp of Bear Hunter in public. Later, they built a monument to their fallen comrades in the Fort Douglas cemetery. Connor was promoted to Brigadier General for his efforts at the Battle of Bear River.

Madsen:

"Well it was their chance to gain some glory of course. They couldn't go to Virginia to fight the rebels so if they were only going to be able to fight Indians, or native Americans, it was their chance to make a name for themselves and to make their Connor, their colonel, a brigadier general too. This was a matter of some pride to them; so they looked forward to it, as Connor did. It was the opportunity they had been looking for, you know. They had enlisted to fight, and here's the only chance to fight -- to fight American Americans."

Narration:
The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah made Fort Douglas a strategic outpost on the Western Frontier. Seasoned troops from the camp could be dispatched to fight the few remaining Indians who were not on reservations throughout the Northern Plains. Troops from Fort Douglas participated in the Sioux War of 1876 and later at the battle of Wounded Knee.
The California volunteers had other major impacts on the landscape of Utah Territory. General Connor made it a priority to develop a mining industry in the Utah Territory. He believed a mining boom would spark an influx of non-Mormons who could dilute the Mormon political control of the region. Encouraged to prospect in their off duty time, soldiers from Fort Douglas found ore in Bingham Canyon, Alta, and Park City. After his military career, Connor established and operated profitable mines, and later became known as the "Father of Utah Mining."

Connor also founded the Union Vedette, a newspaper that gave voice to the so-called gentile population of Salt Lake City and countered the LDS Church-controlled Deseret News. Under the editor Captain Charles Hempstead the paper became the first daily newspaper in the territory.

Carter:
"By the 1870's there seems to have been more of a truce been affected by the Mormons and the people up here - particularly, we've discovered across class lines. The Mormons were always very interested in gentility and culture, with a capital C. I mean, you know, like the Opera and demonstrating their civilized quality of their existence in their community. And I think the, especially the army officers, lent that, let a little prestige to the events downtown. I know there was a special place in the Salt Lake Theater for the for the officers."

Hibbard:
In the 1870's they decided to rebuild the Fort. General Sheraton made a visit out here, and he said it was the worst Fort, the conditions were the worst he'd ever seen. And it must have been pretty bad cause he'd seen a lot of Forts. So they started building these sandstone buildings. The first one built was the two-story building across on the northeast side of the Parade Ground, completed in the spring of 1873, of what they call Quartermaster Victorian. Now they got another appropriation the next year and in 1874 and 1875 into 1876 they constructed most of the red sandstone structures.

Narration:
The transformation from Camp Douglas to Fort Douglas came in 1876, when the post was almost completely rebuilt under the command of Colonel John E. Smith. The fort's signature Officer's Circle was built, with its ten red sandstone quarters forming an ellipse at the top of the parade ground. The unique designed emerged when local army leadership deviated from the standard building plans issued by the army quartermaster

Carter:
"Here at Fort Douglas, I think, that it's very distinctive. I mean, the basic plans of most of the buildings, whether they're the officers duplexes, the barracks and so forth are fairly consistent with what's built around at other posts. But what happened here was that they used the existing stone from Red Butte and was really interested in a picturesque gothic revival outward appearance. You find the standard plan that's being issued by the Army is very restrained and very, sort of, practical kind of soldierly thing and what they did out here is built quite elaborate and fashionable buildings."

Narration:
In the midst of widespread construction, it was decided that an ecumenical church be built. And in 1884, the Gothic Revival-style Post Chapel was established and would serve many generations to come.

Hibbard:
… the time it closed in 1991 it was claimed that it was the oldest Army Chapel in continuous use.

Narration:
The new buildings created a feeling of military stature and permanence not only for enlisted men, but also for the general population of Salt Lake City.

Carter:
"Not only were they here to serve as a military force, but also as a civilizing force. I mean, since they brought American values into the West and into this emerging Western region. And particularly, it's not so prevalent, or it's not so obvious in Utah - where you had the Mormons basically doing the same thing: using their architecture as a way of demonstrating their civilized nature of their religion and their society. The Forts really, in so many ways, act as civilizing elements in the landscape by reiterating the way that American society really works. I mean, there's the officer class and then there's the non-commission class, the middle class, and then there is the, you know, the working class, the soldiers. And so the Forts always had this amazing kind of hierarchy."

Narration:
In 1896, the year Utah was admitted to the Union, the United States Army decided to garrison Fort Douglas with the 24th Infantry Regiment. The move brought approximately 600 African-American men, women, and children to the city. Only four African-American units existed in the U.S. Army; the primary function of these so-called "Buffalo Soldiers" was to suppress Native American uprisings throughout the West and Southwest. Although they had been typically stationed in remote posts, the 24th Infantry soldiers earned the opportunity to occupy an urban fort and nearly quadrupled Salt Lake City's existing black population.

Ronald Coleman:
"And so the sending of them, of the unit to the to Fort Douglas was a reward for past service. And at that time, you had to keep in mind, that Fort Douglas was considered to be one of the finer military stations in the West."

Narration:
Washington dealmaking helped initiate the 24th Infantry's move to the favorable post. The unit's sole black officer, Chaplin Alan Alansworth, sought the help of Reconstruction-era Congressman John Mercer Langston to influence Washington leaders to support the move.

Coleman:
"This was a veteran unit. Many of the men had been into the service for many many years. It also represented a time in which they could have a sense of cohesiveness. Uh, family members and individuals who followed the camp and the setting itself was within the midst of an existing African American community. Uh, an existing African American community which had churches, fraternal organizations; there was an African American newspaper published. And so there was a sense of wholeness to their lives which obviously they had not experienced in some of the more isolated stations of the West."

Narration:
In the 1890s most African Americans were concentrated in former the slave states of the South. Racial polarization was the norm not only in the South but also in Utah, where the majority of the population viewed blacks as second-class citizens.
Negative racial stereotypes emerged in popular culture though minstrel shows and advertisements.

Prior to the arrival of the 24th Infantry, the Salt Lake Tribune featured an editorial citing the presence of black soldiers as an "unfortunate change." The article warned of the 24th Infantry offending "the best people of the city." U.S. Senator Frank Cannon had no success appealing to Secretary of War for transfer of the unit elsewhere.

In a rebuttal to the Salt Lake Tribune, Private Thomas A. Ernest of the 24th Infantry wrote a letter to the editor, saying: "We enlisted to uphold the honor and dignity of our country as our fathers enlisted to found and preserve it... We were men before we were soldiers. We ask the people of Salt Lake to treat us as such."

Coleman:
"Prior to stationing the 24th Infantry, you did not locate African American military units in the midst of a large, white urban settlement which had significant of African Americans as well. In fact, you find that the black units were stationed at isolated posts in the West, Midwest, and the Southwest regions of the country - ranging from Minnesota west and out to Texas west. And so this was an opportunity which, I think, the officers knew that the soldiers needed to make a good showing of themselves. I think, and particularly, that they were aware of the sensitivities to the fact that when the soldiers were not on the post, there was some concern about African American soldiers riding on the local uh, streetcars, back and forth and rubbing shoulders at certain times of the year with some of the best citizens of the uh, community who lived along Brigham Street, which is today South Temple. And it was inferred that somehow a drunken black soldier would be more obnoxious then a white soldier."

Narration:
A year after the soldiers' arrival, the Salt Lake Tribune issued an apology for its earlier opposition to the 24th Infantry and it publicly regretted its earlier prejudice.

The drums of war began to beat early in the spring of 1898, and the 24th regiment was ordered to fight in Cuba and the Philippines as part of the Spanish-American War. On the day of their departure, local residents - both black and white - lined the streets of South Temple to bid them farewell.

Coleman:
"At the depot, one senior member of the community, a white woman, went up to the window of the train and placed her hand against the window, and the African American soldier placed his hand on the window, and she urged the soldiers to do their best --because she recalled when her sons had participated in the Civil War for their freedom, and she was urging them to do something for someone else's freedom. In other words, at critical moments we appear to be able to set aside some of our biases for the common good."

Narration:
The accounts of the efforts of the 24th Infantry in Cuba received widespread coverage in the Salt Lake City press. Members of the regiment participated in the charge up San Juan Hill, a battle crucial to the U.S.'s victory which was led by Theodore Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders."

Later, Governor Heber Wells wrote in a letter to a veteran of the 24th Infantry that he would be pleased to have the unit stationed once again at Fort Douglas.

Coleman:
"I think the fact that several soldiers decided to make Salt Lake City their home in the aftermath of their career, uh, is a connection between the past and the present, and hopefully the future."

Narration:

Following the Spanish-American War, Fort Douglas entered a new era of construction. A row of homes for noncommissioned officers was built, along with several large brick barracks on Soldier's Circle. The construction was meant to attract high-quality soldiers for what was to be a professional standing army.

War in Europe broke out in 1914. At first, President Woodrow Wilson stressed a policy of neutrality in the overseas conflict. The U.S. was nearly provoked to war in 1915, when Germany launched unrestricted submarine warfare and torpedoed the Lusitania a luxury liner carrying American civilians. The United States entered the war in 1917 on the side of the Allies, joining Britain, France, Russia, and Italy.

In May of the same year, the U.S. Army founded Fort Douglas War Prison Barracks III as part of a series of POW camps. The 15-acre Fort Douglas compound became the primary internment camp west of the Mississippi that housed German prisoners of war.

Kent Powell:
The Naval prisoners were interesting in that they were brought from German Naval ships that had been captured in Guam and in Hawaii just as the United States entered World War I in April and then those prisoners were brought quickly to San Francisco and transported overland to Salt Lake City, to the Denver and Rio Grande railroad station, loaded on the streetcar and taken up to Fort Douglas.

Narration: In addition to the naval POWs, 784 alien enemies were interned at Fort Douglas. These men were German and Austro-Hungarian civilians, as well as conscientious objectors to the war. Throughout the country and in Utah, these outsiders were suspected of espionage. The U.S. Justice Department labeled them threats to national security, then gathered and imprisoned them at Fort Douglas.

Powell:
the practice was to house the prisoners of war in facilities that American soldiers would be housed in. Barracks, if they're on base or on an installation. If they were out in a work camp, then it would have been an army tent. They had at least food equal to what we were providing our own servicemen. And there was a lot of free time for them. There were chores to be done around the barracks, but essentially they were left to care for themselves in the camp. Once those chores were done, they could engage in hobbies and classes, uh, history, language, crafts, all kinds of possibilities that way. Uh, gymnastics, exercise, those kinds of programs were available for them.

Narration:
One group of prisoners took advantage of their free time by expressing themselves in jokes, poems, and songs recorded in the scrapbook of Octave Bryk a
German-American civilian internee at Ft. Douglas

One prisoner complained:

No girl, no schnapps, no beer
Why shall I have to suffer like this here?
It sure is a boring dream
To ruin your life like this!

And another wrote:

Fort Douglas, Fort Douglas:
Had I known that they were going to bring me here,
I would have killed myself

But throughout the scrapbook is a tone of hope:

It won't be long until, the
Time for which we can't wait:
The gates will open and we will see
Each other in Germany again.

Feelings about those interned at Fort Douglas Prison Barracks were mixed among the Salt Lake community.

Powell:
Some people, if you bring in a new element, are always fearful of them. So there was a mixture of, of concern, large element of curiosity and uh, a certain amount of fear. And that probably tied in more closely with the uh, enemy aliens as they were brought in because these were the spies and those that uh, that threatened sabotage or were fearful of committing sabotage here in Utah.

Narration:
The anxiety felt among the local public was, at times warranted. On numerous occasions, prisoners tried to escape by means of tunneling, bombing with homemade explosives, and cutting through wire.

Powell :
Well there were several escape attempts and in fact uh, records indicate at least a dozen different attempts. One of which was successful. And the record isn't clear as to how, what they meant by successful, if uh, that individual got away and, and made good on his escape was never identified. As far as I know, we haven't been able to document that. Most of those were aborted before people got outside of the camp. Uh, but a tunnel was dug at Fort Douglas, in an attempt to go out underneath the wire and escape, and so that was certainly a concern. On the other hand there was always that fear that uh, that these people were committed uh, to the Fatherland and would be willing to do whatever it took to further the cause.

Narration:
In 1918 an influenza epidemic swept across oceans and continents, terrorizing communities already devestated by the ravages of World War One. The fatal flu cast its shadow on Fort Douglas, killing twenty POWs who would never again live to see their homeland.

Powell:
The aliens or the civilians were simply loaded on the same wagon that was used to haul the garbage and taken up and buried in what amounted to a common mass grave there in the southwest corner of the cemetery. But if you look at the names on the monument there, you have to wonder if some of those names really are legitimate. Herman German, for example. I'm sure that one is an alias.

Narration:
German naval servicemen interned at Fort Douglas were sent to Fort McPherson in Georgia in 1918. There, they joined other naval POWs until they were returned to Germany after the war's end.

Enemy aliens were detained at Fort Douglas until well after Armistice was declared, and the prison barracks finally closed in April of 1920. A decade later, the German-American community of Salt Lake City paid tribute to those interned during World War I by erecting a monument at the Fort Douglas cemetery.

Powell:
Some might interpret it as a restatement of German pride, I think there's a strong element of that. When it was dedicated, Adolph Hitler had just come to power in Germany a few months before that time, and there was a representative of the German government here, decked out in uniform to participate in that dedication. On the other hand, when you look at the monument and you see the wounded warrior on the top of the monument, , it certainly doesn't convey that, that feeling of militarism and pro-nationalism that Nazism came to represent.

Narration:
The legacy of the First World War endured as the 38th Infantry Regiment was assigned to a Fort Douglas post. The 38th was better known for its nickname, the "Rock of the Marne," for its heroic defense against the Germans in France's Marne river valley. Under the command of General Ulysses Grant McAlexander, the 38th Infantry repelled an onslaught as the advancing Germans attempted to cross the river and march toward Paris. Outnumbered and surrounded, the unit held its position during three days of brutal fighting while other allied units around them retreated. Ultimately, the 38th managed a counter attack and drove the German forces back, capturing 600 prisoners in the process.

The tenure of the 38th infantry was the longest of any other at Fort Douglas - from 1922 to 1940. It was a time when well-known amenities of the post were put in place. The Fort Douglas Golf course was built, along with other new buildings including the post theatre.

The 38th Infantry was highly visible to the greater Salt Lake community. Its regimental band, under the baton of CWO Leopold Yost, performed hundreds of concerts, entertaining civilians and military alike.

The stock market crash of 1929 sent the nation into financial ruin. Spreading from Wall Street to the West, the Great Depression was a time of mass unemployment, failed agricultural crops and economic dearth. But the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as President marked a dramatic change in the rough times. His "New Deal" developed organizations such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration, which provided construction and artisan jobs for government-sponsored projects. Because of the efforts of hard-working men associated with the CCC and the WPA, Fort Douglas flourished despite the economic climate.

Carter:
It's in 20's and the 30's, the Depression years, where you have a real downturn in the economy that the Fort really becomes a model, almost, of the American dream. That the possibility is still there: the government has money to spend and they're putting it into public works projects and the army's one of those uh, those areas where you get this kind of building activity. One of the big building phases is really in the 1930's. There's all sorts of stories about people coming up here and finding work in the 1930's.

There would be concerts and picnics and so forth, and people used the Fort, and particularly the entertainments that were offered by the military band, in a way to forget some of the troubles of that era. You see that in the buildings that are created in the 30's: very, very much a part of the colonial revival. I mean, they're just solid American kinds of structures that embody these virtues. And I think that was not lost on people, and it's part of the overall effect I think that it had. I think if you talked to people now, they remember that as children. You know, certainly as a place to come and get away and spend a Sunday afternoon and kind of hope, be hopeful.

Beth Sundstrom:
I was working for the Department of the Interior when Pearl Harbor happened, and the very next morning we all gathered in the director's office and listened to Franklin Delano Roosevelt declare war upon Japan. I heard from Fort Douglas, and when I went for my interview they explained to me that because uh, there was imminent danger of an attack on San Francisco, they had to relocate the 9th Service Command to Fort Douglas, Utah. And this was a huge undertaking because there was not room. There were no places for the offices, the military or the civilians. So it meant a huge change and there was great pressure to have this done. They wanted this accomplished immediately.

Narration:
Fearing a coastal attack, the army reassigned the 9th Service Command from the Presidio in San Francisco to Fort Douglas. The move required quickly constructing hundreds of wooden buildings to meet the needs of the war effort. These were standardized structures with the same general appearance - wood frames with simple gable roofs. The basic form was a long rectangular box. The building design was guided by five principles: speed of construction, simplicity, flexibility, conservation of materials, and safety-the most important being speed. The average World War II-era building at Fort Douglas was built in about an hour.

Sundstrom:
They made it clear that all of these temporary buildings were only supposed to last for the duration of the war. And the Annex is still there, as we all know.

So they went downtown with their bullhorns -- they meaning the foreman, a helper and a truck. There were many, many men out in the street needing work. And so with their bullhorns they would say, "If you have tools, get on a truck. We have work for everyone." And there were truckload after truckload went roaring up to Fort Douglas and they would put them on the job and put them to work.

Narration:
One of the primary responsibilities of the 9th Service Command was to recruit, induct, and assign orders to young men who signed up to join the armed forces. The Fort Douglas Reception and Induction Center could accommodate 1,000 men at a time. They were sent off to fight throughout the world in all the different theatres of World War Two, from the islands of the Pacific to the beaches at Normandy.

The population of Fort Douglas exploded during the War. At its peak in the fall of 1943, it housed 1,000 officers and enlisted men, and twice that number of non-military personnel. For the first time, women were allowed to enlist in the regular army as WACs, or recruits to the Women's Army Corps. With so many people working together for the war cause, the fort naturally offered a social outlet through recreation and entertainment.

Margaret Montgomery:
"Well, there was something going on all the time. The bandstand right out here had noon concerts. The band played over on what is called Soldier's Field, that building wasn't in the middle of it then. Uh, they used to set up right there and play concerts at noon for all the people who worked in the offices around. They played at the N.C.O. club, the officers club, downtown for things, put on shows at the theater, and they did a big radio broadcast every week through KSL. They just provided so much entertainment - best there was - like Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, everybody all thrown together."

Narration:
As in the first World War, European prisoners were interned at Fort Douglas. But because housing for these German and Italian POWs was scarce, many worked in agricultural camps throughout the area. Some of these men who were captured in Europe and North Africa and interned at Fort Douglas, are now buried in the Fort Douglas cemetery.

Kent Powell:
For me, the cemetery really speaks to that experience of our human connections. Even though war tears us apart, in the end to find enemy and friend buried there together. It makes a very special place. And to realize that uh, people buried there had fought all over the world, the Far East, the Islands of the Pacific, the beaches at Normandy, in other wars, and to end up in that one spot in Utah, I think makes it a very hollowed place.

Narration: The years following World War II are marked by the contraction in size of Fort Douglas. The Veterans administration received land for a new hospital, The Utah Pioneer Trails and Landmarks Association was awarded 49 acres to establish a monument at the mouth of emigration canyon dedicated to Mormon pioneers who had endured the long trek from Illinois to Utah. The University of Utah, bulging with veterans studying on the G.I. Bill absorbed 298 acres, the area which is now the central campus.

Hibbard:
"Eisenhower visited this area in 1947 after the war. The army had already decided that there was not room enough here for modern post, because the city and the university were just enclosing the fort and there was no room for expansion. The president of the university got in to see Eisenhower and asked him, 'We need room' -
they were going to close the fort - 'We'd like to have some of the ground and need help.' And Eisenhower said, 'I know those boys, the fellows on the G.I. Bill. They're good men. Give them anything they want.'"

Kay Lipman:

"When I lived there, it was a smaller community. They were starting to phase out many of the Army official duties there. And they had given the Annex to the University already. And then when I came back to go to school at the University of Utah, I even had classes in the Annex. And you could see the fort was just kind of gearing down, just slowing down slowly. And I didn't really watch it slow down until the point when my daughter went to the University I noticed that the Fort was just not alive anymore. It was just kind of in a slumber, so to speak. And that's one reason um, I think I wanted to make it come alive again. I wanted it to be vibrant and to renew the history of the fort."

Narration:
Throughout the '50s and '60s military tradition was still strong at Fort Douglas - but time was running out. Ironically, the fort's once-strategic proximity to an urban area had rendered it unsuitable for modern army purposes. It was too small for training forces and too close to Salt Lake City for employing contemporary weapons. It endured only as an Army reserve and recruitment center.

In this era, more valuable Fort Douglas acreage went to projects that have become an important part of the state's economy. Land was deeded to the University of Utah for a Hospital and for its Research Park - both centers of cutting-edge medical and biological study. Red Butte Canyon was given over to the Forest Service, to be preserved as pristine wilderness study area.

In 1978 the army decided to close the fort as a cost-cutting measure, but under the scrutiny of General Michael B. Kauffmann, whose ties to the fort started with the 38th Infantry, it was ascertained that shutting down the fort would actually cost the taxpayers money. He enlisted the help of Utah's congressional delegation in the battle to save Fort Douglas, staving off closure for another decade. The Fort Douglas Military museum stands as a tribute to his efforts to save the fort.

In the early part of 1989, as part of President George Bush's mandate to reduce the armed forces in America, Fort Douglas was officially eliminated, it became the much smaller Stephen A. Douglas Armed Forces Reserve Center. The remaining active troops were transferred to another base of operation.

In 1991 the military career of Fort Douglas officially came to an end as the flag was lowered and the University of Utah took possession of sixty-two historic buildings and fifty-one acres of land. The responsibility to reconstruct much of Fort Douglas now rested in the hands of the University.

Carter:
The Army basically lost interest in this place and things deteriorated quite a bit. It's like your house. You know, a house that's lived in and cared for is going to stay in pretty good shape. A post, an army post like this that's kind of on the periphery and people aren't really paying much attention to it, you're going to get that kind of deterioration.

Narration:

In the early 1990s, Margaret and George Montgomery visited the Fort Douglas Post Chapel with friends to celebrate their golden anniversary. But they were disappointed to find it in a very different state than it had been fifty years earlier.

Evelyn Mead:
"It was a little chapel that just reached out to you, but it had a spiritual feeling about it, I mean it just kind of embraced you."

Montgomery:
"We hadn't been back here in all that time. We thought, we really should - this is where we should spend our fiftieth."

Mead:
"And we drove up in front of the chapel expecting to get out and go to services, saw it boarded up and we looked at each other and thought, 'I don't believe what we are seeing.' It was sad, it was neglected"

Montgomery:
"And it was in such disarray, we were sick."

Bill McGinn:
Well, the chapel holds a lot of sentiment for me. When we lived on post, every Sunday we would go to service there. And I remember, being Catholic, I was an alter boy there and would perform those duties and march with my father to and from -- which was a lot of fun trying to keep up with him and his military stride. So, as I got older and watched one of my sisters be married there, it was natural for me to want to choose that as a place to be married in.

Narration:
The responsibility of revitalizing Fort Douglas now rested in the hands of the University of Utah. The National Trust for Historic Preservation designated it an official Save America's Treasures project. It was time to bridge Fort Douglas's past through to the future. . .to make its presence relevant to the university…to create a place where individuals would again connect in community on its grounds.

Carter:
On one hand history means the past to us. We think that well, someone will say well that Fort's really historical and that means that it ought to be saved and that it's static and doesn't change. And yet what we really know about history is that it's constant change…
You can see these layers of a camp, and then it becomes a more permanent area with stone structures and then it sort of enters its institutional phase as a headquarters, totally blossoms and expands in the '30s and the '40s and then it goes into a period of decline as the Army's attention shifts other place, basically to the point where it's shutdown. And then the University takes it over and it has another part of its history.

Narration:
The University of Utah created a state-of-the-art residential housing area for students that incorporated elements and materials found in the Fort's historic structures. Fort Douglas Heritage Commons will also serve as an official venue of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games Athletes' Village for people from around the world who will compete in the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. In both capacities, the residential area will be a place of community, allowing people from different places to come together and to create the next chapter of history.

Coleman:
We are very strongly committed to building a strong residential experience for our students. And so I think that the setting here provides a unique opportunity to build connections to the larger history of Fort Douglas and a connection to the contemporary experiences of students and staff and faculty working together.

Anne Racer:
The programmatic function of the fort has changed over decades but was always related to military and to war. And now we have this vitality of youth and an opportunity for education and collaboration that will continue to go on here for years and will still serve the community as a place where they can come and visit, learn the history of the Fort and experience this unique environment.

On the ground where musket and cannon thundered 140 years earlier…across the pathways where men marched off to five wars…in the face of a city and University that have grown up to surround a fort which once stood apart, and was viewed with dread…stands a place transformed in the present to meet the needs of the future… yet desperate to hold on to all that has gone before.

In the face of such compelling demands, the new Fort Douglas requires unique standards to measure its success.

Racer:
"I came up one day on the weekend when excavation just began and I saw a squirrel run from one tree to another just looking so confused and so panicked and I became very emotional over that. I knew that the quail that I had seen over the past years in Chapel Glenn and out on the Parade Grounds wouldn't be there with all of this construction going on and it touched me greatly. And I made a determination at that time if when the project is completed, the quail return, then we will have been successful. And about three weeks ago there were quail."

Narration:
"The Spirit of Fort Douglas" was made possible by the George S. and Delores Doré Eccles Foundation and the C. Comstock Clayton Foundation.