Fort Benjamin Harrison Historic District

About this property

Fort Benjamin Harrison was a U.S. Army post located in suburban Lawrence Township, Marion County, Indiana, northeast of Indianapolis, between 1906 and 1991. It is named for the 23rd President of the United States, Benjamin Harrison. In 1901, Russell Harrison, the son of former U.S. president Benjamin Harrison, facilitated the sale of a U.S. Arsenal near downtown Indianapolis. The U.S. Army used the proceeds to buy land in 1903 in a more remote area, where the fort is located today. Secretary of War Elihu Root named the post for President Benjamin Harrison in honor of Harrison's hometown. Fort Benjamin Harrison saw its highest levels of activity during World War I and World War II. The Fort Benjamin Harrison Reception Center (for inducting draftees) opened in 1941 and by 1943 was the largest reception center in the United States. Within Fort Harrison was Camp Glenn, named in honor of Major General Edwin Forbes Glenn, who had served as Fort Harrison's commandant from 1912 to 1913, and who had commanded the officer training that began at his camps in 1916. Camp Glenn was a Citizens Military Training Camp (CMTC) that was also used to house Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers. When the United States reestablished the Military Police Corps in 1941, an MP school was established at Camp Glenn and was in operation by early 1942. The area was also used to detain Italian and German prisoners of war in 1944 and 1945. In 1947, the Army declared Fort Harrison to be surplus property, but declined to completely close it due to a lack of adequate training space for the Indiana National Guard. From 1948 to 1950, the post functioned as Benjamin Harrison Air Force Base. The Tenth Air Force was moved from Omaha, Nebraska, and headquartered at both Schoen Field on Fort Harrison and Stout Army Air Field in Indianapolis. Overcrowding and inadequate facilities soon forced the 10th Air Force to move to Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Michigan, and the Army reacquired control of Fort Benjamin Harrison. It became the home of the United States Army Adjutant General School in March 1951. In 1957, the school moved into the new Gates-Lord Hall along with the United States Army Finance School. At the time, this 300,000-square-foot (28,000 m2) building was the third largest owned by the Department of Defense. The Adjutant General School remained there until the Base Realignment resulted in its move to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, starting in 1991. By 1995, the Adjutant General School had completely vacated Fort Benjamin Harrison. The Finance School also moved to Fort Jackson in 1995.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Marion County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Marion County.

More historic places in Indiana

Browse all historic places in Indiana.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Indiana history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.