Historic Building Survey of Fort Benning, U.S. Army Infantry Training Center, Georgia

During 1985 a study team representing the disciplines of architectural history, history, and landscape architecture, conducted an Historic Building Survey of Fort Benning, Georgia. This consisted of both fieldwork and archival research, and resulted in a building by building inventory of more than 800 structures 50 years or older and an historical narrative.

It was found that most of Fort Benning's standing historic structures are clustered in a definable district, known as the Main Post Cantonment. More than an aggregation of historic buildings, this district was found to be a planned environment of land use, buildings, roads, and open spaces. Archival research documented that the present post was first occupied by June 1919, and that its history is inseparable from that of The Infantry School of the U.S. Army. Post and school grew up together through 20 years of peace between the two world wars. Starting out as an incomplete camp of wooden buildings and tents, the post by 1935 was an impressive campus of permanent buildings and handsome residential neighborhoods. The transition from camp to campus was traced to the leadership of General Briant H. Wells, Commandant of the school, 1924-26. The "Wells plan" is credited with the basic layout evident on the post today. It was refined five years later by Georgia B. Ford, prominent city planner, who was adviser to the War Department in its nationwide housing and building program. The "Ford plan" manifested the influence of the "City Beautiful" and "Garden City" planning movements. Within 6 years it was largely built, due to massive appropriations sent to Fort Benning as unemployment relief measures during the Great Depression. The historic buildings of the post were mostly built of stucco with terracotta tile roofs, in a Spanish Colonial Revival style. This architectural consistency, in conjunction with the layout and landscaped open spaces, produced the harmonious campus character evident today.

The survey concluded that the Main Post Cantonment Historic District has national and regional significance in the areas of community planning, architecture, landscape architecture, and military history; and recommends that Fort Benning seek a determination of eligibility for placement of the district on the National Register of Historic Places. Of historic buildings lying outside the district, the survey recommends that a determination of eligibility should be sought for the Air Corps Double Hangar and the former 32nd Balloon Company hangar, both at Lawson Field.