Sacramento Army Depot (site) (Sacramento, California)

 Second World War 1939-1945, military, United States Army

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"The 1991 Base Closure and Realignment Commission closed the Sacramento Army Depot (SAAD) on March 3, 1995 ending an era lasting well over 50 years. The history of the Depot began back in the hectic pre-war days of the early 1940s, when America started gearing up for the inevitable war that would become World War II and continued operation through Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and lasted well into the 1990s. SAAD was a high tech facility responsible for the support of numerous, Department of Defense Weapon Systems, Army Material Systems and other associated Communication-Electronics end items. It occupied some 485 acres within the city limits of Sacramento, California. SAAD was an important part of the Sacramento landscape for well over 50 years providing more than 3,000 civilian jobs and operation of a community domestic action program known as, "Operation Santa Clause." As a Major Depot, SAAD was built as a city within a city having its own water facilities, fire department, restaurant and Clubs, infirmary, Chaplin, gas station, railroad, police force, credit union, motor pool, movie theater, and even an aircraft runway, known as Reed Army Airfield. Generations of its work force were able to work their entire federal service careers there. The Depot became a reality with the realization by the War Department that an impending War on two fronts would deluge the need for war materiel and swamp existing storage facilities in the continental United States. This forced them to move quickly and decisively to enact a plan of action that would offset this reality. Their answer was to create 12 new Depots across the entire county with SAAD eventually established as a Signal Depot. The city of Sacramento was selected by the War Department as a site for a Depot because of its far western location and close proximity to major water, railroad, and highway corridors running through it. This allowed the Army access to its Western bases and a direct sea portal to the South Pacific. This concept of leasing provisional quarters allowed a quick response to meet the pending needs of war, which came all too soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941."


Read more of this detailed history here: www.militarymuseum.org/SacramentoArmyDepot.html


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