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Billy Hathorn, Fort Logan National Cemetery, established in 1950 on the grounds of the former Fort Logan, 5 April 2012, Wikimedia Commons
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Site

Fort Logan

Fort Logan was a 960-acre Army base named after former Union general John A. Logan. Active between 1887 and 1946, the fort was used as the breeding ground for many domestic deployment operations throughout its almost 60 years of military service. In 1890, its troops were deployed to the Ghost Dance War against the Sioux Nation in South Dakota, but allegedly did not partake in the ensuing Wounded Knee Massacre. In 1894, it participated in the quelling of nationwide railroad protests following the watershed Pullman Strike against the Pullman Company in Chicago. Between 1943 and 1944, the site was used as a WWII Prisoner of War Camp. In 1946, the site was passed over to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to serve as a temporary health care facility for veterans. In the late 1950s, the Martin Aerospace Company, a predecessor of Lockheed-Martin, rented several buildings on the site to expand missile manufacturing. Today, Fort Logan houses the Colorado Mental Health Institute and Fort Logan National Cemetery.

Recent plans to expand development projects have had to deal with Superfund regulations because of environmental concerns, including significant amounts of lead, petroleum, and paint pollution. Additionally, according to the EPA-developed EJSCREEN (an environmental justice mapping application), the site is located in an area with a higher minority population (42%) than the state of Colorado as a whole (31%), which raises environmental health and race-specific vulnerability and equity issues. Finally, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Information for Planning and Conservation (IPaC) internet application, the site is home to many federally listed endangered species, such as the Least Tern, Whooping Crane, Pallid Sturgeon, and the Western Prairie Fringed Orchid.

Sources

Friends of Historic Fort Logan. "History." Accessed August 1, 2020.

TTL Associates, Inc. and Department of Veteran Affairs. "Final Environmental Assessment of the Proposed Land Acquisition for the Expansion of the Fort Logan National Cemetery." June 12, 2019. Accessed August 1, 2020.
 

Last Updated:

08/18/2021

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