, the Fort Ord Soldiers' Club in 1992. Stilwell Hall was the largest soldiers' club constructed in the west, in 1943. Named to honor General
"Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, it was built in
Mission Revival style. After the
American entry into World War I, land was purchased just north of the city of
Monterey along Monterey Bay for use as an artillery training field for the
United States Army by the
U.S. Department of War. The area was known as the
Gigling Reservation, U.S. Field Artillery Area,
Presidio of Monterey and Gigling Field Artillery Range. Although military development and construction was just beginning, the war only lasted for another year and a half until the
armistice on November 11, 1918. Despite a great demobilization of the U.S. Armed Forces during the inter-war years of the 1920s and 1930s, by 1933, the artillery field became Camp Ord, named in honor of
Union Army Maj. Gen. Edward Otho Cresap Ord (1818–1883). Primarily, horse cavalry units trained on the camp until the military began to mechanize and train mobile combat units such as
tanks,
armored personnel carriers and movable artillery. By 1940, the 23-year-old Camp Ord was expanded to , with the realization that the two-year-old conflict of
World War II could soon cross the
Atlantic Ocean to involve America. In August 1940, it was re-designated Fort Ord and the
7th Infantry Division was reactivated, becoming the first major unit to occupy the post. Sub-camps were built around the Fort to support the new training of Troops,
Camp Clayton. Camp Clayton was built near CA Highway 1, the
South Dakota National Guard 147th Artillery were the first unit to train at the new camp. In 1941, Camp Ord became Fort Ord. Soon the first threat came from the west as the
Imperial Japanese Navy struck the island of
Oahu,
Hawaii at
Pearl Harbor near
Honolulu in an unannounced air attack, Sunday, December 7. In a few days the other
Axis powers, such as
Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, along with
Fascist Italy of
Benito Mussolini, declared and spread war in
Europe against
Great Britain, France and the
Low Countries to the U.S. The end of the war came with the surrenders of
Germany, in May, and Japan, in September 1945. The subsequent onset of the
Cold War against the
Soviet Union caused increased tensions which continued for the next forty some years into the early 1990s. In 1947, Fort Ord became the home of the 4th Replacement Training Center. During the 1950s and 1960s, Fort Ord was a staging area for units departing for war in the
Korean War and later peacetime/occupation duty in Japan,
South Korea, the
Philippines and
Thailand. Then, when
Southeast Asia became a war zone with
Vietnam (and later involving, by the 1970s,
Cambodia and
Laos), the United States had, at one time, 50,000 troops on the installation. The
194th Armored Brigade was activated there under Combat Development Command in 1957, but departed for
Fort Knox in
Kentucky in 1960. Between 1952 and 1954 the
Del E. Webb Construction Company was hired to construct some 42 new permanent buildings to make Fort Ord a permanent Army post. The total cost of construction was more than $20,000,000. The first buildings completed were dormitories followed by a guard house and stockade. Additional buildings constructed as part of the plan were an administrative headquarters building, quartermaster warehouses, and an improved water storage system. There were a total of 31 dormitory buildings that could house 7,000 men. In 1957, land on the eastern side of the post was used to create the
Laguna Seca Raceway which served to replace the
Pebble Beach road racing course that ceased operations for safety reasons in that same year. The post continued as a center for instruction of basic and advanced infantrymen until 1976, when the training area was deactivated and Fort Ord again became the home of the 7th Infantry Division, following their return from
South Korea after twenty-five years on the
DMZ ("demilitarized zone"). On July 14, 1989, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed placement of Fort Ord on the National Priorities List (NPL). The site contained leaking underground petroleum storage tanks, a landfill that was primarily used to dispose of residential waste and small amounts of commercial waste generated by the base, a former fire drill area, motor pool maintenance areas, small dump sites, small arms target ranges, an firing range, and other limited areas that posed threats from unexploded ordnance. NPL status was finalized on February 21, 1990. The final basic training classes were held in 1975. ==Closing the Fort, 1994==