Our geocaching hobby took us to the former army base of Fort Ord today. At 28,000 acres (44 sq. mi.), it is huge. We can access one edge of it with a relatively short walk from our house, but today we drove out to an area overlooking the Salinas Valley ☞.
Established in 1917, Fort Ord was an important training and staging base for World War II and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. At its height, it housed 50,000 soldiers. It was closed in 1994.
Today, much of Fort Ord is administered by the Bureau of Land Management, some of it as a national monument, and by California State Parks; some has been transformed into Cal State University Monterey Bay; and some has been developed for housing. Some land remains occupied by old army buildings, which are in the slow process of being razed, with more development likely to follow.
Our outing today, to complete a five-step "Adventure Lab," took us to the former Silas B. Hayes army hospital (now a Department of Defense office building), then on to the former East Garrison, today a housing development. At East Garrison we took a walk to visit the old warehouses (where German POWs were housed after WWII), the old mess halls , the old officer quarters, and, glamorously, the old latrines, and to read the informational signage. It was a beautiful afternoon with gorgeous winter light. I took some photos.
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| The old warehouses |
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| A photo from the day of one of the mess halls |
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| The officers' quarters |
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| The site sits on a bluff overlooking the Salinas Valley |
It was nice to get out for a walk and see a little history and enjoy the abstractions that light and age create.
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