Chapter 4 - Cultural Resources Report

Chapter 4 - Cultural Resources Report - 1996

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EVALUATION OF SELECTED CULTURAL RESOURCES
AT FORT MONMOUTH, NEW JERSEY:
CONTEXT FOR COLD WAR ERA,
REVISION OF HISTORIC PROPERTIES DOCUMENTATION,
AND SURVEY OF EVANS AREA
AND SECTIONS OF CAMP CHARLES WOOD
by
Mary Beth Reed
Mark Swanson
NEW SOUTH ASSOCIATES
Stone Mountain, Georgia
Subcontractor for Geo-Marine, Inc.
and
Rebecca Procter
Marsha Prior

June 1996

MISCELLANEOUS REPORT OF INVESTIGATIONS
NUMBER 125
Geo-Marine, Inc.
550 East Fifteenth Street
Plano, Texas evans logo

for
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Fort Worth District
819 Taylor Street
Fort Worth, Texas

CHAPTER 4
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FORT MONMOUTH
AND ITS ROLE IN THE COLD WAR ERA

INTRODUCTION

In June of 1995, New South Associates (New South) of Stone Mountain, Georgia, conducted an architectural survey of the Cold War-era buildings at Fort Monmouth, Monmouth County, New Jersey. As a part of this survey, the Cold War history of Fort Monmouth, 1946 to 1990, was also researched. At present, Fort Monmouth consists of three parts: the main installation, often referred to as the Fort Monmouth Main Post, and two subinstallations known as the Camp Charles Wood area and the Evans area (see Figure 1). The Fort Monmouth Main Post is located in Eatontown and Oceanport, three miles west of Long Branch, New Jersey, and 45 miles south of New York City. The Charles Wood Area is located just two miles southeast of the Main Post, while Evans is located 10 miles to the south, in Wall Township. Examination of the Cold War significance of Fort Monmouth considered all three parts of the fort, but the Evans Area was subjected to special consideration because it will be greatly impacted by an impending Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) action, which may entail the closure and transfer of the entire subinstallation.

HISTORIC OVERVIEW

The Early Phase of Development

In the 1880s, the area of Fort Monmouth Main Post served as the site of the fashionable Monmouth Park Racetrack, which catered to its wealthy clientele by way of excellent rail connections to New York City. When the New Jersey legislature outlawed gambling in 1893, the racetrack was forced to close. By the time the Army acquired the property during World War I, the facility was dilapidated (Buchanan and Johnson 1984:18).

Fort Monmouth began as Signal Corps Camp Little Silver, located on about 468 acres, which the Army leased with an option to buy. The camp opened in June of 1917 for the First and Second Reserve Telegraph Battalions. Training began the following month, when the camp was still in transition from tents to wooden buildings. Instruction was provided in basic Signal Corps drills, cryptography, heliography, and semaphore. By mid-September 1917, the camp designation was changed from Little Silver to Camp Alfred Vail (Buchanan and Johnson 1984:18-20).
By the end of 1917, the first Signal Corps laboratories were established at Camp Alfred Vail and were augmented throughout 1918. Perhaps the most important of these were the radio labs that experimented with voice radios, improved radio sets, and radio transmission to and from airplanes (Buchanan and Johnson 1984:12, 24; Evans Signal Laboratory 1945). Wood-frame hangars were constructed for the first planes in the spring of 1918, with the site of the old polo field serving as the landing strip; the first radio ground-to-air tests were conducted in May (Buchanan and Johnson 1984:20-21).

Although all planes were removed from Camp Alfred Vail after the Armistice in November 1918, the hangars remained. In 1919, when the Army consolidated many of its Signal Corps activities to Camp Alfred Vail, the Signal Corps School was housed in the converted hangars. One of these hangars, Hangar 4 or Building 104, was enlarged in 1927 and incorporated into the permanent facilities established in the 1920s and 1930s (Buchanan and Johnson 1984:20-26).

In August of 1925, the Army decided to make Camp Alfred Vail a permanent post. For this occasion, the camp was finally purchased and renamed Fort Monmouth. The process of consolidating all Signal Corps activities at the installation continued, and a program of permanent building construction was initiated. The earliest permanent post buildings were constructed between 1927 and 1936, and included three-story brick and concrete barracks, officers housing, a hospital (Building 209), and other essential post facilities (Bingham ca. 1990; Buchanan and Johnson 1984:12-52; Communications-Electronics Command [CECOM] Historical Office 1994:3). Foremost among the new buildings at Fort Monmouth were Russell Hall (Building 286), the post headquarters building completed in 1936, and Squier Hall, the new Signal Corps Laboratory building built in 1934-1935 (Bingham ca. 1990; Evans Signal Laboratory 1945). With the completion of these buildings, the permanent post was essentially in place (Figure 2). During the 1930s and 1940s, however, both the research activity conducted at Fort Monmouth by the Signal Corps and the threat of war impacted the physical layout and construction of buildings.

Construction at the permanent post was launched again in response to President Roosevelt’s declaration of a “limited emergency” which he made in the wake of Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Following this, the Selective Service Act in September 1940 was implemented. This act increased the size of the peacetime army (Buchanan and Johnson 1984:53), and directly affected Fort Monmouth. Beginning in November of 1940, new temporary barracks were added to the permanent post (U.S. Army Signal Training Command and Fort Monmouth, New Jersey 1961). By 1942, with the United States officially at war, Fort Monmouth was designated as the Army’s Eastern Signal Corps Training Center. More than 60,000 Signal Corps personnel were trained at Fort Monmouth in the course of the war (Buchanan and Johnson 1984:12, 53).

In addition to the construction that took place at the permanent post, several subinstallations were established for the purpose of conducting research in radar, electronics, and communications. By the early 1930s, the Signal Corps had begun intensive research in radar technology. With war imminent these activities were intensified, and the need for facilities in which to develop and manufacture radar technology became critical.

The Subinstallations at Fort Monmouth

Prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, four subinstallations with laboratories—Camp Coles, Camp Charles Wood, Sandy Hook, and Camp Evans—were established at Fort Monmouth as field laboratories for the Signal Corps. Camp Coles was located near Red Bank, New Jersey. Camp Charles Wood was set up on a site that was originally a 1920s country club named Sun Eagles, and later renamed the Monmouth County Country Club. In October of 1941, the Army acquired the country club for a new training facility and maneuver area. The old clubhouse became Gibbs Hall (Building 2000) and was soon designated the Fort Monmouth Officers’ Club (Buchanan and Johnson 1984:68). During World War II, the major lab building at Charles Wood was Building 2525 (Buchanan and Johnson 1984:70). Sandy Hook is believed to have been a temporary set-up, located at Fort Hancock. When John Marchetti was employed there in the late 1930s
Figure 2. Permanent post, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, 1936 (Courtesy, CECOM Historical Research Collection, Fort Monmouth).
to early 1940s, Sandy Hook consisted of eight buildings, mostly old hangar types, which were used to house the research crews. The work that was conducted there was believed to have actually started in secret in 1938 (John William Marchetti, personal communication 1995). Of the four subinstallations with laboratories at Fort Monmouth, the most significant one, in terms of its central role in radar development, was Camp Evans.

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