World War II Home Front

K-285

The United States' mobilization for World War II brought dramatic changes to this region. The Radford Ordnance Works, nine miles northeast of here, and the New River Ordnance Plant, near here, opened in 1941. Construction employed more than 20,000 people from 45 states, and thousands of workers later operated the facilities. This population boom diversified the area’s agricultural economy and transformed its infrastructure, bringing new roads, schools, retail and industrial establishments, and private and government-funded housing developments. About a mile southeast of here is the New River Ordnance Plant’s staff village, a set of 15 houses built in support of the war effort.

Department of Historic Resources, 2017

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Ashley M. Neville and Debra A. McClane, “The World War II Ordnance Department’s Government-Owned Contractor-Operated (GOCO) Industrial Facilities: Radford Ordnance Works Historic Investigation,” (Fort Worth: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1996). Robert C. Mack and Jeffrey A. Hess, “Radford Army Ammunition Plant: Written Historical and Descriptive Data,” (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Interior, 1985). Mary B. LaLone, Peg Wimmer, and Amanda Hartle, eds., The Radford Arsenal: Impacts and Cultural Change in an Appalachian Region (Brightside Press, 2003). H. Jackson Darst, Dublin and the Darsts: A Portrait of a Virginia Country Town and One of Its Families (Newbern, VA: Wilderness Road Regional Museum, 1992). R. Lloyd Mathews, Pulaski County, Virginia: An Historic & Descriptive Sketch, 1907-2007 (Pulaski: Pulaski County Jamestown 2007 Planning Committee, 2007). Southwest Times, 14 July 1944.