Army Influx Changing ‘Smalltown’ Atmosphere in Upstate New York

Workers are laying the last tile, painting the last wall and putting other finishing touches on the largest Army construction project since World War II.

At a time when experts foresee a major contraction of American defense spending due to the thaw in U.S.-Soviet relations, the Army has spent five years and $1.2 billion building a new home for the reactivated 10th Mountain Light Infantry Division.

Everything from barracks to bowling lanes and motor pools to mini-malls has been built for the 10,000 soldiers attached to the division and their 14,000 dependents. About 6,000 civilians also have moved into the region as a direct result of the expansion, officials estimate.

Construction has gone so well at Ft. Drum that it will be completed about two months ahead of the January, 1991, scheduled target date.

Both socially and economically, the arrival of so many new faces has been disquieting for some people of the rural, insular communities in this region, near the U.S.-Canadian border and about 250 miles northwest of New York City.

“It’s ruined Smalltown, U.S.A.,” said lawyer Jack Scordo, 63, a lifelong resident of Watertown, about 10 miles west of the huge Ft. Drum compound. “The quality of life has definitely changed. It had what I like to call a rarefied atmosphere. But that has changed.”

Men in uniform are nothing new in Upstate New York. The Army began staging maneuvers in the area in the early 1900s. Much of the original Ft. Drum was built in the early 1940s, when the encampment was a major training area for World War II troops.

National Guard units from throughout the Northeast have long used the 107,000-acre installation (largest in the Northeast) for summertime training. The Army sends troops to Drum for winter training in the snow.

Before the expansion, the Army had based at Ft. Drum a permanent garrison of about 1,000 men who managed the facility.

Moving the 10th Mountain Division into the fort required the construction of what amounted to a new city.

The “old” Ft. Drum could pass for the set of television’s “Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.” The new base, on 1,800 acres adjacent to the Quonset huts of the original, resembles a college campus or an industrial park.

Much of the housing for the soldiers and their families is in communities that are up to 25 miles away from the base.

The superintendent of one school district that had an influx of military children said that integrating the families into the communities was a good idea.

“We have a true mix within the communities of military-related people along with the people of the communities themselves,” said Kenneth Rishel of the Carthage Central School District. “We don’t have much ‘them vs. us’ between people from the fort and those from the villages.”

Maj. Hyram Bell, a public relations officer at Ft. Drum, said that with housing for 1,900 Army families scattered throughout the region, there has been much interaction between the soldiers and civilians.

“Our kids go to schools in those areas, shop in the local stores, go to the same recreational areas and participate in community activities,” he said. “People get to know us.”

A major worry for Ft. Drum officials was how black and Latino soldiers and their families would be received in the mostly white region. Before the fort expansion, less than 1% of the residents of Jefferson County were minorities. Nearly a third of the division’s members are minorities.

The fort dispatched teams to local schools, and chaplains were sent to the churches to speak about racial harmony.

There have been no racial problems, and some local residents said that the ethnic diversity has added something to the quality of life.

“It’s rather nice to see a Korean grocery store,” said Steve Lyman, Jefferson County’s deputy commissioner of social services. “You hear some different kinds of music on the radio now. It’s brought some welcome diversity. This was kind of a stagnant area, the sort of place where kids grew up and left.”

It was the sort of place where everyone felt safe. Now, Rishel said, some people complain about having to lock their doors at night for the first time in their lives.

The crime rate has risen in Jefferson County during the last five years, but sheriff’s Lt. Ed Simser said authorities don’t blame the Army personnel or their families.

“With the fort came an increase in population from other avenues, from workers on the fort and in other industries that have moved in,” he said. “We’ve seen a definite increase in crime, no question about it, but we believe it’s due more to the population trends and not Ft. Drum specifically.”

The Jefferson County unemployment rate has fallen to 6% from 13.3% in 1984, according to the state Labor Department. Lyman said that county welfare rolls have been reduced, to about 1,900 cases from 2,400 cases in 1985.

Scordo complained, however, that the economic benefits promised by expansion proponents in 1984 and 1985 have not really materialized. He said most jobs created by the expansion are low-paying positions in fast-food restaurants and mall stores, not the better paid blue-collar jobs that were a staple of the New York state economy for decades, until a slump in the 1970s and 1980s.

Defenders of the project concede that the boom that came with the height of the construction work is over.

“We’re now settling into a plateau,” said Mary Parry of the Greater Watertown Chamber of Commerce.

She said that officials want to develop the region’s tourism industry in light of the fort’s expansion. The fort is not far from the northeastern shore of Lake Ontario and the rivers, many filled with fish, that flow into the lake.