Mountain View Officers' Club at Fort Huachuca

photo by: Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation

African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund

Mountain View Officers’ Club at Fort Huachuca

  • Constructed: 1942
  • Architect: Del Webb
  • Location: Fort Huachuca, Arizona

The Mountain View Officer's Club was constructed in 1942 by Del Webb and remains one of the most significant examples of a World War II-era military service club in the United States for African-American officers.

From 1892 to 1946, Fort Huachuca claimed the highest number of African-American soldiers at a military installation in the United States. To mobilize for World War II, the military began a large-scale building effort at Fort Huachuca, specifically to house the “all-black” infantry divisions, and built barracks, hospitals, maintenance structures, offices, warehouses and recreational facilities, all of which were segregated and, in many cases, built in duplicate.

Over 1,400 temporary buildings were constructed in a 75,000-acre area known as the New Cantonment Area. Few of these buildings remain today, and the Mountain View Officers’ Club is the only remaining recreational facility left at Fort Huachuca from this period.

Vacant since 1998, the U.S. Army Garrison is proposing to demolish the Mountain View Officers’ Club, claiming that it no longer has a need or funding to support the maintenance of this building. The National Trust and our partners believe viable reuse options exist. The Mountain View Officers’ Club was listed as one of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2013.

The National Register-eligible Mountain View Officers’ Club is an example of World War II Mobilization architecture constructed based on the U.S. Army’s 700-series Mobilization Building plans for “service clubs.” It is a utilitarian, two-story wood-frame building that served as the recreational center for Fort Huachuca’s African-American military personnel.

Beginning in 1913, Fort Huachuca was the headquarters of the famed “Buffalo Soldiers,” one of the U.S. Army’s elite black cavalry corps. During World War II, the post’s population soared to more than 30,000 when two black infantry divisions, the 92nd and 93rd, trained there.

The Mountain View Officers’ Club is an important structure for its association with the African-American military personnel stationed at Fort Huachuca during World War II and its association with a period in U.S. History in which the U.S. Army was racially segregated.

Campaign Goals

  • Encourage the Army to collaborate with the National Trust and other consulting parties to support reuse and preservation of this rare historic building.
  • Raise national awareness of the history of the segregated military and the role of the Mountain View Officers’ Club and the Buffalo Soldiers in American history.

Opportunity

Preserve and reuse the Mountain View Officers’ Club (Building 66050) at Fort Huachuca -- one of only three known extant African-American officers’ clubs in the United States.

Join us in protecting and restoring places where significant African American history happened.

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