Archive for December 13th, 2008
History of Ft. Carson part II
Fort Carson History
Search for Homes in Fort Carson
Please check out the part 1 post if you haven’t read: An early history of Ft. Carson
Part II starts in the early 1960’s and will go through 2004. I’ll deal with Ft. Carson today in another article that will also give some great websites if you’re being transferred here in the near future.
During the early 1960’s, Ft. Carson was home to only one major unit and was on McNamara’s list of potential base closings. This was not known at the time but the Cuban Missile Crisis and Berlin blockade was enough for the Army to reactivate two more divisions, including the 5th Infantry which formally reactivated in early 1962. The 5th was the Army’s first mechanized Infantry division to be organized. The problem was the need for land. Tanks need lots of room to roam and so in 1965, the base acquired almost 25,000 acres of state land (remember it was originally leased in 1942). They traded the land with some federal land owned at the time close to Lowry near Denver. Also, in 1965 and 1966 they purchased almost 79,000 acres south of the original base for around $3.5 million. All this brought Ft. Carson up to its current size of 138,523 acres, though Ft. Carson officials and the Army have recently been trying to acquire more land which has been met Read the rest of this entry »






