Augusta College - White Columns Yearbook (Augusta, GA)

Page 18 text:

. J ORESHADOWING World War I, activity in- creased rapidly. Colonel J. Walker Benet was 1 U commander and had the heavy responsibility of expanding the arsenal to serve the troops. He set up new departments, trained additional per- sonnel, and leased land on the Georgia Railroad where warehouses were built. It was during this period that Stephen Vincent Benet, who later became famous, was writing prose and poetry in the house now occupied by the president of Augusta College. Following World War I, and during the great de- pression hundreds of unemployed persons were given work assignments at the arsenal through the Works Progress Administration. Buildings were painted, roads repaired and paved, grounds dug up, graded and replanted. When the dark clouds of World War II began to gather, new buildings mushroomed. Approximately fifty were erected, bringing the total to 101 buildings valued at $100,000,000.00 Thousands of persons were trained, civilian and military, in new occupa- tions. At the peak of the war there were 2152 civilians employed and the arsenal was operating on a 24- hour, daily, 3-shift basis. Material was shipped abroad under lease-lend agreements. The arsenal ' s mission included main- tenance, overhaul, manufacture and storage of ordinance. The optical and fire-control section re- paired intricately-wired director systems similar to present day computers. It occupied an entire four- story building and the upper floor of another large brick building. Coating of optics to reduce reflection and intensify light transmission, which was a new and interesting development in science, was accom- plished here. After more than a century and a half of continuous service, the arsenal finally bowed to the advancing age of space. Once considered a large arsenal, in 1955 it was considered too small to be of effectual use to the United States, and it was closed. Even be- fore the government-owned property was removed from buildings, influential citizens of Augusta were taking steps to acquire the site and buildings for Augusta College. They were successful; the college occupied the site in 1957.