About the Rock Island Arsenal

Arsenal: Deep Roots in U.S. History

At the end of the War of 1812, the U.S. War Department decided to build forts along the Mississippi River to better assert federal authority.

In 1816 troops built a fort on the western tip of Arsenal Island, naming it Fort Armstrong after Secretary of War John Armstrong.

Settlements, which eventually became Davenport and Rock Island, developed across from the fort under its protection. After the Black Hawk War in 1832, and the removal of most Indians in the area, the fort was no longer needed. Troops left in 1836 and the fort gradually fell to ruin.

The Civil War brought renewed federal activity to the island. As Union armies pushed south along the Mississippi River they sent prisoners north. The Quartermaster Department of the Army built a series of prisons at Alton, Quincy, Rock Island, and Fort Douglas outside Chicago.

The Rock Island Barracks were flimsy wooden structures on the north shore of the island near its center.

Headquarters were established in the George Davenport home. From December 1863 to July 1865, Rock Island was home to more than 12,000 military and political prisoners.

After Civil War armies repeatedly overran the federal armory at Harper's Ferry, Congress decided it was too vulnerable and looked westward for a more secure location for arms storage and manufacturing and in 1862 authorized construction of the Rock Island Arsenal.

Construction took from 1866 to 1893 under the direction of Gen. Thomas Jackson Rodman, the famous gun designer.

Through the 1870s and into the 1890s, the Rock Island Arsenal was the major western storehouse of military equipment, supporting the armies on the western plains. Gradually, the Arsenal mission shifted to equipment repairs and light manufacturing.

Production turned to gun carriages in 1894. Since the 1890s, development of an industrial work force has led to manufacturing of sophisticated recoil mechanisms for heavy guns.

From 1919 to 1973, the development and repair of tanks was a major portion of the Arsenal's role, as was development and production of rocket launchers from 1944 to 1962.

The Arsenal has been a major employer in the Quad-Cities area throughout the 20th Century. Peak employment was more than 23,000 during World War II.

When the Ordnance Department decentralized its administration in the mid-1950s, it established the Ordnance Weapons Command headquarters in 1955 at Rock Island. The name has since changed to the Armament, Munitions and Chemical Command. Twice as many people work for Command Headquarters as for the Arsenal.

The Rock Island Arsenal is also home to the Army Management Training College, originally founded on the island in 1940. Since 1900, the Rock Island District Corp of Engineers has been located there.

The Marine Corps has a reserve training center near the west end. The Veterans' Administration has taken over and expanded the cemetery grounds at the eastern end of the island.

The Rock Island Arsenal invites you to visit their Home Page