What does Fort Campbell mean for life in Clarksville?
Clarksville is one of the fastest growing cities in the United States today, and Fort Campbell army base is a big part of that. Plus the local news for July 16, 2024 and a conversation with the author of the new book “Dynamite Nashville.”
Below is a partial transcript of the episode:
It’s July 16, 2024. On this day in 1941 Clarksville residents discovered their city was about to change in a really big way. That’s the day the federal government announced the establishment of a new army installation, what we now know as Fort Campbell.
Today, it’s hard to imagine Clarksville without Fort Campbell. Data from a couple of years ago showed that a full quarter of the city’s population is made up of active duty or retired military and their families.
In an era of base closures and consolidations, the continued, if not growing, importance of Fort Campbell to the Army is at least part of the reason why Clarksville is now one of the fastest-growing cities, not just in Tennessee, but in the nation. And you see references to the base all over the city. I mean, eagles alone … the 101st Airborne are known as the screaming eagles, and there are high school and youth league sports teams with eagle mascots, subdivisions and apartment buildings with names like Eagles Landing and Eagles Crest. Not to mention the businesses that put 101st in their names.
A Kentucky politician may have successfully pressured the government to officially designate the base as Fort Campbell, Kentucky, but Clarksville is the installation’s gateway city, and the military has become an integral part of the community.
But back in 1941, when the War Department announced its plans, people were pretty surprised, and a little worried. Down in Tullahoma, the brand-new Camp Forrest had recently open. (That’s since changed both purpose and name. Now it’s the Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Complex.)
But Camp Forrest was a huge World War II training base. And let’s just say there were a lot of growing pains in Tullahoma as that facility opened up. And remember, this was the summer of 1941, before the U.S. entered the war.
Clearly, everyone could see that the military was spooling up to be ready to jump in at some point. And beyond the question of how a new Army base would impact the local community, that sense of impending war was unsettling for a lot of folks.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, public sentiment in Clarksville shifted, and people were more willing to be partners with the new post. One woman who had initially protested against having her land taken for the base became pretty devoted to it. Annie Mabry Barr became known as “Stockade Annie” and acted as a defacto chaplain, leading religious services on base and visiting wounded soldiers in the post hospital and others who’d gotten thrown in the stockade for poor behavior. She even adopted a sort of makeshift liturgical garment: a black satin cape covered in insignia, pins, crests and medals given to her by appreciative troops.
As for those troops, during World War II they were mostly folks who had been sent there for armor training. Since the mid-50s, Fort Campbell has been home to the 101st Airborne. And in the post 9/11 era, that’s been one of the most-often deployed combat units in the Army. Which is probably why they were recently picked to be the first group to be issued what the military is calling Next Generation Squad Weapons, a particularly lethal category of rifles.
Credits:
This is a production of Nashville Public Radio
Host/producer: Nina Cardona
Editor: Miriam Kramer
Additional support: Mack Linebaugh, Tony Gonzalez, Rachel Iacovone, LaTonya Turner and the staff of WPLN and WNXP
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