Historical Overview of the Badger Army Ammunition Plant Lands

Excerpted from a report prepared by the
Badger History Group and the Historical Resources
Subcommittee of the Badger Reuse Committee

By Mike Mossman

More about the Badger Army Ammunition Plant

Historical Overview
of the Badger Army
Ammunition
Plant Lands

Ecological Significance
of the Badger Plant

The Badger Army Ammunition Plant lies at the juncture of three landforms: the Precambrian, quartzite Baraboo Hills to the north; the rolling, terminal moraine of the last (Laurentide) ice sheet to the east; and the glacier’s flat, fertile outwash plain to the west. Prior to Euro-American settlement, which began in the 1840s, the tract was a mosaic

of tallgrass prairie (primarily on outwash, part of the 14,000-acre Sauk Prairie), oak savanna (primarily on moraine) and semi-open oak woodland (on the Baraboo Hills). The tract and its surroundings were inhabited by Sauk Indians when white explorers visited in the 18th century, then by Ho-Chunks until the land was ceded in 1837. Older effigy and burial mounds, linked to Ho-Chunk ancestors, were present but were destroyed after settlement.
Farmers turned the fertile tract into productive farmland and used the adjacent Baraboo Hills for woodlots. In 1941, when the Army announced plans to construct the plant, the former prairies and savannas were relatively treeless—a patchwork of grass hay, rowcrops, small grains,

pasture, hedgerows and farmsteads. In the absence of wildfire, small tracts of savanna left unplowed and ungrazed were developing onto woodlots. Those parts of the Baraboo Hills oak woodland that hadn’t been cleared were closing in and succeeding to more fire-sensitive, shade-tolerant species like maples and ashes.

The coming of the plant decimated the Sauk Prairie farming community, displacing 80 farm families from 10,000 acres (after the War the Army sold some 2500 unneeded acres to families of veterans, on the east side of the property). Auctions occurred daily in spring 1942, and families moved off. Many farms were assessed at very low values, forcing some families to resort to suing the government at a time when the national psyche was one of government support and personal sacrifice. Hard feelings remain after six decades. Three one-room schools, three churches and a town hall were absorbed by the plant and, like the farmsteads, were torn down. A few homes were moved to local communities. The two cemeteries on the tract were carefully maintained (and another lone grave discovered) but burials were no longer allowed, leaving some family members interred beside the vacant plots of their survivors.

At the same time, construction of the plant helped end the Depression for thousands of workers, and for local residents who benefited from retail sales and local construction projects. The construction crew

peaked at 12,000 in August 1942, and production began the following winter. Construction and production workers poured in from near and far, finding housing in everything from homes, spare rooms, attics, on-site barracks and a nearby Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp, to trailers and outbuildings. A Federal Housing Project community, Badger Village, was constructed nearby for workers, and the adjacent section of Hwy 12 became Wisconsin’s first rural 4-lane highway. Several local businesses and construction companies got their start during this time.

The plant (then called Badger Ordnance Works) was one of 77 Government-Owned Contractor-Operated (GOCO) industrial plants constructed by the U.S. Army for WWII, and one of 23 of these plants that produced explosives or propellants. It was operated by Hercules Powder. It produced acids and used these to treat cotton fibers and wood pulp to produce nitrocellulose. This was further processed into smokeless powder, ethyl centralite (E.C.) powder, and rocket powder. The latter product required nitroglycerin, which was also produced at the plant. These propellants were shipped elsewhere to be incorporated into ammunition for small arms, cannons, grenades and small rockets. A dynamite (TNT) production area was partially constructed but aborted. Electricity was provided by outside utilities. A large on-site power plant produced steam, which provided heat and some power through a network of some 200 miles of elevated pipe.
The workforce peaked at 6600, working round-the-clock in three shifts, and commuting by carpool and buses from as far as 80 miles. It included production workers, safety and security forces, administrators, engineers, maintenance and crafts people, a small hospital staff, and others. Most of the 1400+ buildings were of wood-frame construction, which incorporated many design features related to specific production and safety requirements, including non-static concrete-graphite floors, break-out doors, escape chutes, blow-out roofs, concrete partitions, soil-filled timber barricades to direct explosions upward,

high-capacity sprinkler systems, etc. To avoid sparks, some machines were powered by steam or compressed air, and some buildings were lit through windows from the outside. The spacing between specific buildings reflected the distance that explosions might carry. Safety was also incorporated into operational procedures and functional uniforms, which varied among production areas. Smoking and matches were prohibited. Workers were often checked when arriving or leaving the plant, and were generally restricted to their work areas while on-site. A "plant culture" developed around the common experiences that related to production, safety issues, rationing and work on the "home front". These were reflected in a plant newspaper, recreation hall, and stories that have lasted nearly 60 years.

The plant closed shortly after the war ended, but was maintained in readiness until the outbreak of the Korean conflict, when about 5000 workers again produced smokeless and rocket powder. Near the end of this war, a new section was built to produce ball powder. The plant was kept in stand-by mode again until 1966, when it began production for the Vietnam War. During the ensuing 10 years, the plant produced nearly as much propellant as it had for the first two wars combined. It was the focus of at least two antiwar protests and an unsuccessful aerial bombing by protester Karleton Armstrong, whose uncle had been killed by an accidental explosion at the plant in 1945. Armstrong eventually blew up Sterling Hall at UW-Madison in protest of the war.

At the end of Vietnam era production, new facilities were built to produce acids and nitroglycerin. Other facilities were eventually constructed to clean groundwater contaminated by earlier, unsafe disposal practices, and polluted soil and other materials were treated or land-filled. A "buffer" area used for wildlife conservation eventually developed into a 1400-acre area for prairie and savanna restoration, managed with several partners. The USDA built a Dairy Forage Research Center on a corner of the property and began leasing several hundred acres for agricultural studies and production. A few warehouses, storage tanks, and an office building were leased to local businesses. The plant was kept at ready until the announcement of its impending excession, in 1997. This was part of a larger decision to decommission ordnance plants no longer needed after the Cold War. Salvage of some redundant production lines at the Badger Plant began soon thereafter. Today, the 7,354-acre Badger Plant includes over 1400 buildings, 26 miles of railway, 130 miles of roads, and 200 miles of elevated steampipe, roughly 2300 acres of pasture, 2000 acres of cropland, 175 acres of prairie restoration, 48 acres of wetlands and ponds, 960 acres of woods, and 500 acres of shrubland, with the balance in industrial buildings and infrastructure. Many other buildings are within pastured areas.

For more information, contact:
The Sauk Prairie
Conservation Alliance
P.O. Box 403
Baraboo, WI 53913
info@saukprairievision.org