Pre-1941 The land occupied by the Redstone Arsenal was previously inhabited by Native Americans. 651 prehistoric archaeological sites have been archived at Redstone Arsenal to date. At least 22 have components dating to the
Paleo-Indian period (9200 to 8000 BC). The Paleo-Indian handhewn projectile point called the Redstone Point was named after the Arsenal where it was first identified. Euro-Americans settlers began to establish homesteads on the land that is now Redstone Arsenal by the first decade of the 19th century. Prior to the
Civil War, the landscape was dominated by several large plantations, the remains of which survive as archaeological sites. The land played a peripheral role during the Civil War with activity limited to the posting of pickets along the Tennessee River bank. Following the war, many of the large plantations were increasingly divided into smaller parcels owned by small farmers, who included former slaves and their descendants. By the start of the 20th century, many of the farms were owned by absentee owners, with the land being worked by tenants and sharecroppers. The remains of hundreds of tenant and sharecropper houses still dot the landscape around the installation. At the beginning of the 20th century, the approximately area of rolling terrain, which contained some of the richest agricultural land in Madison County, included such small farming communities as Spring Hill, Pond Beat, Mullins Flat, and Union Hill. Although there was no electricity, indoor plumbing, or telephones, few roads, and fewer cars or tractors, the people who lived in the area prospered enough to support their own stores, mills, shops, gins, churches, and schools. A total of 46 historic cemeteries including slave cemeteries, plantation family cemeteries, and late 19th to early 20th century community cemeteries are maintained on the installation as
Redstone Arsenal cemeteries.
Huntsville Arsenal As part of the mobilization leading to U.S. involvement in World War II, Huntsville Arsenal was established in 1941 to create an inland chemical weapons plant in addition to one in
Edgewood, Maryland. It was announced by the
War Department on July 3, 1941. Over 550 families were displaced when the Army acquired the land, including over 300 tenants and sharecroppers. Most of the landowners were allowed to salvage their assets and rebuild elsewhere. The remaining buildings were almost all razed by the War Department. A land-use agreement was arranged with the
Tennessee Valley Authority for the Army to use about of land along the Tennessee River. The military installation was originally composed of three separate entities: the Huntsville Arsenal and the Huntsville Depot (later the Gulf Chemical Warfare Depot), which were operated under the auspices of the
Chemical Warfare Service; and the Redstone Ordnance Plant, operated by the
United States Army Ordnance Department. The name
Redstone drew on the region's
red rocks and
soil. In the immediate post-war era the Arsenal was used for research and development by German weapons rocket scientists who had been brought to the U.S. as part of
Operation Paperclip. The team first worked on
ballistic missiles, starting with
V-2 rocket derivatives, before moving on to a series of ever larger designs. Many of their tests were carried out at
White Sands Missile Range and flights between the two locations were common. In late 1956 the Army was relieved of most of its ballistic missiles in favor of similar weapons operated by the
US Air Force. The German design team was spun off to become part of the newly founded
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Cold War had moved to space, and the US intended to compete with the Soviet Union there as well as across the globe. The Arsenal served as the primary site for space
launch vehicle design into the 1960s. In its early years, the arsenal produced and stockpiled chemical weapons such as
phosgene,
Lewisite, and
mustard gas. The use of toxic gases in warfare was banned under the Geneva Protocol of 1925, but the U.S. signed with the reservation that it be allowed to use chemical weapons against aggressors who used them. The facility also produced
carbonyl iron powder (for
radio and radar tuning), tear gas, and smoke and incendiary devices. The arsenal also produced small pyrotechnic devices including small solid-fuel rockets during the war. Three days after the announcement of the Japanese surrender, production facilities at the installation were put on standby. After the war, Huntsville Arsenal was briefly used as the primary storage facility for the Chemical Warfare Service, and for manufacture of gas masks and dismantling of surplus incendiary bombs. Most of the wartime civilian workforce was furloughed, dropping to 600 from a wartime high of around 4,400. Much of the arsenal land was leased for agriculture, and many of the buildings were leased for local industry. By 1947, the installation was declared to be excess, the first step toward demilitarization. The
Army Air Forces was searching for a site to establish a major air development center and considered Huntsville Arsenal. In 1949, a competing site near
Tullahoma, Tennessee was selected. The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army then directed that Huntsville Arsenal be advertised for sale by 1 July 1949. The proposed sale never happened, because the Army found it needed the land for the new mission of developing and testing rocket systems.
Thiokol Corporation moved operations to Redstone Arsenal from Maryland in the summer of 1949 to research and develop rocket propellants, while
Rohm and Haas began work on rockets and jet propulsion. On June 30, 1949, Huntsville Arsenal was deactivated and consolidated with the other two entities to become Redstone Arsenal. Command responsibilities were assumed by Redstone. On June 1, 1949, the
Chief of Ordnance of the United States Army designated Redstone Arsenal as the Ordnance Rocket Center, its facility for ordnance rocket research and development. In April 1950, the Fort Bliss missile development operation, then with 130 German contract employees, 120 civil-service employees, and 500 military personnel, was transferred to Redstone Arsenal. This became the Ordnance Guided Missile Center (OGMC), with Major James Hamill as acting commander and von Braun as technical director. An initial project was the Major tactical missile. Upon the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, OGMC was given the mission of developing a surface-to-surface ballistic missile with an objective range of . Starting with an upgraded Major missile, the design went through a series of improvements and ultimately became the PGM-11 with the popular name
Redstone rocket. To expedite development, an existing engine was used, greatly reducing the operational range to between 58 and 200 miles. During the Korean War, ammunition production was resumed at Redstone Arsenal. From July 1951 through July 1955, around 38,700,000 rounds of chemical artillery munitions were produced. The OML had many other research and development programs. Under Toftoy, the organization included the R&D Division under Col. Miles Birkett Chatfield, the Field Service Division under Maj. Ben Keyserling, and the Industrial Division. In the R&D Division there were the Surface-to-Air Projects under Maj. Rudy Axelson, the Surface-to-Surface Division under Maj. Dan Breedon, and Special Projects under Lt. Colonel John O'Conner. Projects in Surface-to-Air included the Nike B (later called the
Nike Hercules),
Hawk and others. The proposal,
Project Orbiter, was rejected in 1955.
Ordnance schools In March 1952, the commanding officer at Redstone Arsenal officially established the Provisional Redstone Ordnance School. In December, the Ordnance Guided Missile School (OGMS) was established, taking over the provisional operation. The OGMS greatly expanded through the years, occupying a large land area with many buildings and providing a wide variety of missile and munitions courses for thousands of students from the U.S. as well as many foreign countries. In 1966, the name was changed to the Missile and Munitions Center & School, and then to the Ordnance Missile and Munitions Center and School in the mid-1980s. In 1994, the School Brigade disbanded and was replaced by the reformed
59th Ordnance Brigade, which had previously disbanded in Europe in 1992. In 2002, the school was renamed the Ordnance Munitions and Electronic Maintenance School, and moved to
Fort Lee in 2011.
Army Ballistic Missile Agency ,
Wernher von Braun, and RSA deputy commander Brig. Gen.
Holger Toftoy (left to right) in the 1950s The
Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), commanded by Maj. Gen.
John Medaris, was formed on 1 February 1956, taking over from Redstone Arsenal the facilities and personnel of OGMC. Von Braun was the Director of ABMA's Development Operations Division. Redstone Arsenal then became an Army post, supporting the ABMA and, in the future, other agencies. Medaris also commanded RSA, and BG Toftoy was deputy. By 1958, 20,000 civilian, military, and contractor workers were employed within Redstone Arsenal. The Army Ordnance Missile Command (AOMC) was formed in March 1958. Headquartered at Redstone Arsenal and commanded by Maj. Gen. Medaris, AOMC had several subordinate elements, including ABMA, White Sands Missile Range, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at California Institute of Technology. Another local activity, the Army Rocket and Guided Missile Agency (ARGMA), was formed and added to AOMC in June.
Army Missile Command The U.S. Army Missile Command (MICOM) was activated on August 1, 1962 at Redstone Arsenal, absorbing all of the personnel, facilities, and projects remaining in the prior AOMC. On March 12, 1964, the Francis J. McMorrow Missile Laboratories were dedicated in memory of MICOM's first commander, who died while in command. Dating from the start of AMC,
Project Nike involving anti-aircraft missiles had been conducted. As the
intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) came into being, a much higher-performance system was needed for ICBM defense. The
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) examined the requirements and recommending a system, designated Nike-X, incorporating phased-array radars, high-performance computers, and separate low-altitude (
Sprint) and high-altitude (
Spartan) high-velocity interceptor missiles. To manage this development, in 1963 MICOM created the Nike-X Project Office headed by Colonel (later Brigadier General) Ivy O. Drewry. In 1968, the Army Ballistic Missile Defense Agency (ABMDA) was formed, taking over Sentinel and other ballistic missile defense projects previously under MICOM. Commanded by B. G. Drewry, ABMDA established operations adjacent to Redstone Arsenal in the
Cummings Research Park. In May 1974, all ballistic missile defense efforts were consolidated under a single manager in the
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, which eventually evolved into today's
U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command.
Today Redstone Arsenal remains the center of testing, development, and doctrine for the Army's missile programs. Besides the U.S. Army Materiel Command and the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command, Redstone houses the Tactical UAV Project Office, Redstone Test Center (RTC), the
Missile Defense Agency, the
Missile and Space Intelligence Center, and other operations. After operating as a tenant on Redstone Arsenal for over half a century, the Ordnance Munitions and Maintenance School was moved to Fort Lee (formerly
Fort Gregg-Adams),
Virginia. Redstone Arsenal continues to host the Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA's largest field center for propulsion analysis and development, which developed the
Saturn rocket family in the 1960s and propulsion systems for the
Space Shuttle in the 1970s and 1980s. Redstone Scientific Information Center, a 450,000-volume library established by NASA and the Army in 1962, was shuttered on September 30, 2019. The cost-saving measure was announced by Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center (AvMC); ==Demographics==