VANCOUVER BARRACKS, TRUCK STORAGE GARAGE HABS WA-267 (Building No. 304) WA-267 (Building No. 406) Vancouver National Historic Reserve District East Fifth Street southeast of McLoughlin Road Vancouver Clark County Washington PHOTOGRAPHS WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA FIELD RECORDS HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY PACIFIC WEST REGIONAL OFFICE National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior 909 First Avenue Seattle, WA 98104 HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDING SURVEY VANCOUVER BARRACKS, TRUCK STORAGE GARAGE (Building No. 304) (Building No. 406) HABS No. WA-267 Location: Vancouver National Historic Reserve District East Fifth Street southeast of McLoughlin Road Clark County Washington USGS Vancouver Quadrangle Topographic Map, Universal Transverse Mercator Coordinates: 10.526145.5052336 Present owner: United States Army Reserve Present use: Vacant/Storage Significance: The Truck Storage Garage, Building No. 304 (currently Building No. 406), is a contributing building to the Vancouver National Historic Reserve District in Vancouver, Washington. The military reserve is significant for its role in the defense of the Pacific Northwest and its place in the administrative history of the United States Army (U.S. Army). The truck storage garage is a good example of a utilitarian building type erected in the 1930s during the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) tenure at Vancouver Barracks. The truck storage garage reflects the building development within Vancouver Barracks that occurred during the Great Depression when the post was designated as one of the headquarters for the CCC. In 1935, over a dozen support buildings were constructed to accommodate the influx of enrollees, and the reserve's role as a CCC supply and administrative center. Completed in 1935, the truck storage garage was part of a complex of motor pool buildings built on the south side of East Fifth Street (originally the Evergreen Highway), the main east-west road through Vancouver Barracks. These utilitarian buildings were vital to the operations of the CCC camps. VANCOUVER BARRACKS, TRUCK STORAGE GARAGE HABSNo. WA-267 (Page 2) PART I. HISTORICAL INFORMATION A. Physical History 1. Date of erection: 5 September 1935 2. Architect: U.S. Army 3. Original owners: U.S. Army 4. Contractor: Contractor name unknown. U.S. Army and CCC work crews. 5. Original plans and construction: According to the U.S. Army's 1935 Quartermaster's report, the truck storage garage was completed on September 5 of that year as part of a cluster of motor pool buildings erected after Vancouver Barracks became the headquarters and dispersing agency for CCC camps across Oregon and Washington (Figure 5). Originally designated as Building No. 304, the truck garage was constructed on the south side of East Fifth Street, east of McLoughlin Road (Figure 4). The 50' wide and 140' long, wood-frame building was built with a concrete foundation, horizontal wood siding, boxed eaves, and a gable roof covered with composition shingles. Seven garage door bays spanned the length of the north facade (Figure 6). The folding garage doors were comprised of wood panels below and multi-light windows above. The windows on the west, east, and south facades were six-light, wood sash windows. The interior of the garage was designed as a large open space that had a gravel floor. Diagonal braces on the sidewalls supported the large trusses that spanned the width of the interior. The garage, completed in 1935 for a cost of $2,801.00, had a storage capacity of 28 trucks. 6. Major alterations: On 16 February 1960, plans were completed by the Office of Post Engineer at Fort Lewis, Washington, to convert the garage into a hanger for the Civil Air Patrol (Figure 6). The central bays on the north facade (fourth & fifth from the east) were modified into a single bay with a sliding door to accommodate small airplanes. The vertical support beam between the two bays was removed to expand the opening, and a laminated support beam to strengthen the header replaced the original steel I-beam above the two openings. A metal track was installed to support the sliding door rollers. The original folding doors were converted into sliding doors. A concrete slab floor later replaced the gravel interior floor, and a concrete apron was poured beyond the north facade wall. VANCOUVER BARRACKS, TRUCK STORAGE GARAGE HABSNo. WA-267 (Page 3) Prior to 1960, an interior office was built in the eastern end of the building, and between 1963 and 1987, a pedestrian door added to the west facade. A pedestrian door was also added to the one of the original folding doors on the north facade. The building was repainted and the gutters replaced in 1987 (Figure 8). B. Brief Historic Overview: Fort Vancouver Barracks Note: The following historic overview is based on a report entitled "Fort Vancouver, Cultural Landscape Report" prepared by Terri A. Taylor, Project Landscape Architect, and Patricia C. Erigero, Project Historian, in 1992. Development of Fort Vancouver For thousands of years prior to Euro-American settlement, the region around present-day Vancouver Barracks was an important Native American trading center. The predominant group in the region was closely related to the Chinookan languages. Their village economies were based primarily on fishing, hunting and gathering. As Euro-Americans began to explore and settle the native lands, the Native American populations declined dramatically due to smallpox, measles, malaria, and other diseases. By the early-1830s, an estimated ninety-eight percent of the Chinook population had died. In the next 25 years, the few Native Americans that survived the diseases were moved to reservations in exchange for residual fishing rights. In 1824, the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) established Fort Vancouver, a fur-trading post on the north side of the Columbia River near present-day Vancouver, Washington. Fort Vancouver developed into the most important Euro-American settlement west of the Rocky Mountains, and became the economic, political, social, and agricultural center of the Pacific Northwest. Between 1829 and 1846, Fort Vancouver's influence in the Pacific Northwest reached its peak. Under the leadership of Chief Factor Dr. John McLoughlin, the fort dominated the fur-trade industry. The fort became the administrative hub, and the social and cultural center of the region. In 1849, the U.S. Army built a military post on the hill above the fort's stockade, and by 1850, the military had established a 640-acre military reservation around Fort Vancouver called Columbia Barracks. Although the HBC and the U.S. Army co-existed for several years, political, economic, and social pressure led to the loss of thousands of HBC-owned land to squatters. In 1860, Fort Vancouver and the remaining HBC land around the stockade were abandoned. By the mid-1850s, there were over 40 buildings at the U.S. Army reservation, which was divided into three main sections; the garrison, arsenal, and quartermaster depot. Houses, barracks, barns, warehouses, and a hospital were all part of the military reservation. VANCOUVER BARRACKS, TRUCK STORAGE GARAGE HABSNo. WA-267 (Page 4) In 1865, the U.S. Army established the Department of Columbia and designated Columbia Barracks as its headquarters. Two years later, the headquarters was relocated to Portland. The headquarters was returned to Columbia Barracks in 1878, and renamed Vancouver Barracks in 1879. An expansion of the barracks followed as numerous barracks and dwellings were built to house officers and enlistees. Throughout the 1880s and early 1900s, the soldiers of Vancouver Barracks enforced domestic policies in the Pacific Northwest. World War I and the Twenties Vancouver Barracks served as a principal military site for the Pacific Northwest during World War II. The Spruce Production Division, part of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, was formed to provide milled spruce for allied demands for production of combat airplanes. The barracks became the site of the Cut-up Plant, the largest spruce mill in the Division, and the training center for recruits leaving for the logging camps. Thousands of soldiers descended on Vancouver Barracks to help in the war effort. The activity at the camp came to a halt after the armistice was signed in November 1918. The number of wartime soldiers at the fort dwindled to peacetime levels. After World War I, the post became the site of a Citizens' Military Training Camp given statutory authority in the National Defense Act of 1920. The camps, held for two weeks each summer at posts throughout the country, were designed to give civilians training in various branches of the service. Vancouver Barracks also served as a branch of the newly formed U.S. Army Air Service. In 1921, the Air Service joined forces with the U.S. Forest Service, and created an airplane forest patrol. The barracks became a major base for the Portland-Vancouver region. In the mid-1920s, under post commander Oakley Kelly, the airfield was developed for commercial and military flights, and served as a training center for the air reserves, a stop-over for military aircrafts and trans-polar flights, and an airfield in case of war. The airfield was officially named Pearson Field in 1925 (ceased to be an active Army Air Corps base in 1941). Civilian Conservation Corps and Vancouver Barracks One of the most popular and successful work programs established by the Roosevelt administration was the CCC, which combined work relief programs with the preservation of natural resources. Started in 1933, the program put young unemployed men (and some women) between the ages of 18 and 25 to work on reforestation, road construction, flood control, and beautification projects. Other work included building firebreaks, lookouts, bridges, campgrounds, trails, and museums in the National parks. There were over 1,500 camps in the United States that employed over 2.5 million men and 8,000 women.