Government contracts revived moribund businesses that had struggled to stay open during the Great Depression. Today, the complex of buildings, known as the Federal Center, sits at its original location at West Sixth Avenue and Kipling Street.Īs young men were drafted or volunteered for military service, other massive changes began to sweep the state. The plant was declared surplus in October 1945. Workers later made fuses for 8-inch, 90mm, and 155mm artillery rounds. Eventually the plant was turning out an astonishing 6.2 million rounds of ammunition per day-more than any other factory in the United States, and perhaps anywhere in the world. 30-caliber bullet-used in standard-issue American weapons like the M-1 Garand rifle, Browning automatic rifle, and M-30 Browning machine gun. Nearly 20,000 people-half of them women-worked in three shifts around the clock. Some 200 buildings were grouped according to function to lessen the explosion risks involved in ammunition production. On October 25, 1941, the bullet factory was dedicated at a ceremony, five and a half months ahead of schedule. The Denver Ordnance Plant project created thousands of construction and factory jobs over the next five years. The contract was a godsend for Denver, which, like virtually everywhere across the Depression-ravaged country, was suffering from high unemployment rates. It would be built on the 7,000-acre Hayden Ranch in what would be known as Lakewood. On January 4, 1941, eleven months before the Pearl Harbor attack, the federal government, perhaps anticipating that war was inevitable, awarded a $122 million contract for the development of land, buildings, and equipment for the Denver Ordnance Plant-a “bullet factory” that the Remington Arms Company would operate. Colorado saw an outpouring of patriotic sentiment that has never been equaled in December 1941 alone, more than 2,000 citizens swamped recruiters’ offices. Millions of young men (and many women, too), angered by the surprise attack, flocked to military recruiting offices, eager to serve their country. The bombs that fell on Pearl Harbor sent shock waves across the country. That isolationist sentiment vanished in an instant on Sunday, December 7, 1941. It was one thing to sell the tools of war (through the Lend-Lease Act of 1941) to Britain and the Soviet Union so that they could fend off the attacker, but sending American boys to fight was quite another. Let’s take a look back and see what our state contributed to the war effort-and vice versa.Įver since Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and then when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, many in the United States had been viewing the growing conflict with alarm but also a reluctance to see the country get dragged into another foreign war. While the state had no shipyards or tank or aviation production facilities, that didn’t mean Colorado’s contributions were insignificant. That the conflict ended in victory for the Allied nations-the United States, France, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and its commonwealth partners, and others-has much to do with Colorado’s role in it. Three-quarters of a century have passed since the most widespread and destructive war in history ended-a war that many historians have called the pivotal event of the twentieth century. Contact National & State Register Staff.Recent Listings in the National & State Registers.Colorado State Register of Historic Properties.Preservation Planning Unit Resource Center.Information for Archaeologists, Paleontologists and Researchers. ![]()
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