From Deseret News archives:
Camp Kearns: Documents offer new glimpse into life at dismantled WWII base
The local amateur baseball team included residents who were former players for the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Dodgers and St. Louis Browns. Some soon-to-be-famous artists were working there, but they were merely painting street signs or walls.
The community of 40,000 boasted what was maybe the nation's largest dental facility. It also had a 1,100-bed hospital. And unlike most Utah communities, it had a gas-warfare training range, a huge firing range and even a stockade.
It was Camp Kearns, an Army Air Forces base during World War II. It was razed after the war, and the Salt Lake County suburb of Kearns grew in its place to provide much-needed affordable housing for ex-GIs. The growing town utilized the base's abandoned streets, water and sewage systems and electrical lines.
The Deseret News just obtained through the Freedom of Information Act some once-classified, partial histories of the base from the U.S. Air Force. These materials, supplemented by other data, help show the base's missions, reveal some famous people who once served (or visited) there, and help give a flavor of what life was like.
A city overnight
Two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the Army chose 5,000 acres of wheat fields in the Kearns area for a basic-training site for future pilots and ground crews. Documents say it was chosen because it was far from enemy danger on the coasts and because Salt Lake Valley had good rail, highway and air connections.
In just a few months, nearly 1,000 buildings were completed for what at first was called "Basic Training Center No. 5." Some construction workers included young Japanese-American men being shipped to internment camps but who were temporarily diverted and hired.
"From wheat field and waste land has blossomed Utah's third largest community," housing 40,000 soldiers, said a proud base history written in November of 1943.
Recent comments
They say that your past dictates your future. If that is the case,...
Paula Larsen | July 21, 2008 at 1:58 p.m.
This was an accurite article. Well done..
Three books in the...
monte rouska | July 21, 2008 at 12:31 p.m.
What a great story. We lived in Kearns for years many many years and...
Gary James | July 21, 2008 at 7:24 a.m.
- Try this chicken two-fer 6:54 p.m.
- Cats are trainable — no joke 6:47 p.m.
- Oscar gets 20 animated submissions 6:38 p.m.
- Semifinal slate sealed on 'Dancing' 6:30 p.m.
- Records: MJ's funeral cost about $1M 6:28 p.m.
- Yardsmart: Flowers honor veterans 6:26 p.m.
- Lining up for 'Modern Warfare 2' 6:22 p.m.
- Ronnie Wood divorced over adultery 6:21 p.m.
- Warhol's MJ portrait sells for $812K 6:17 p.m.
- MacIntyre wins literature award 6:16 p.m.
- SLC council OKs gay rights policies
- Utah Jazz have a problem at point
- 'Love story' of crash victim ends
- BYU football recruit turning heads
- Alta's Ohai is Ms. Soccer 2009
- Prep football: Felt's Facts Week
- 12 Utes return to Texas
- Cougars' defensive hoops clinic
- Wyoming writer amazed by BYU
- Gays get Mormon support in SLC
- House passes health care bill
275 - SLC council OKs gay rights policies
234 - TCU showdown has big implications
192 - Senators want food tax restored
157 - Cougars crush hapless Cowboys
155 - Utah Jazz fall apart against Kings
131 - TCU 4th in AP poll; U. 16th, Y. 22nd
119 - S.L. vote pending on gay protections
109 - No 'backlash' for pioneers, gays analogy
108 - Pratt pleads not guilty to sex charges
100
This week, I'm compiling my annual list of restaurants serving...
Remember last year? 13-10 babbbbbyyyyyy!! Can't deny the fact that the Utes...
Your tears have been delicious. Here's to another year of bathing in your...
As a mother of a daughter who sustained a traumatic brain injury as the...
To Why Socialism always fails! | 5:02 p.m. An interesting fairy tale,...
NO - but you must be one of the greedy "investors" who lost money.
check out those patent leather shoes that the peta spokeswoman is wearing.
Your entire post rambles. You reference my header, but then reference nothing...
I dare say who is using hateful speech and who is not is very much a matter...
SPAIN VS. USA Stats for all countries available at the World Health...
Typical Yewt fan does the following: Troll BYU articles in the DesNews;...


