A Mission to Save Piece of Army History at Ft. Ord Site

The state Legislature is riding to the rescue of a now-shuttered Army club conceived 60 years ago by a legendary World War II general when he commanded troops at Ft. Ord on the Monterey Peninsula.

Gen. Joseph Stilwell’s dream when he headed troops there was a distinctive recreation building that would serve as an oasis for GIs. Now it’s in jeopardy of falling into the Pacific Ocean after being repeatedly battered by winter storms.

So in the final hours of this year’s legislative session, lawmakers hailing its historic value agreed to earmark $3 million to help move the Spanish revival-style building to more stable ground. Gov. Gray Davis now must decide whether the project is worthwhile or would the money be better spent elsewhere.

When what’s now known as Stilwell Hall was built on a bluff, World War II was in full swing and the general was commanding troops in Burma. Thousands of GIs would pass through the doors of what would become the largest soldiers club in the West for dances, parties or just to grab some cold refreshment.

To save the recreation center, Army officials are proposing to move the 55,000-square-foot structure, perhaps on rollers, about 700 feet farther from the shoreline.

The Legislature, without much fanfare, agreed to funnel $3 million into the project to match $3 million set aside by the Army.

“It [the hall] hasn’t been used for years. The thing is really unsafe. The back is falling off the cliff into the ocean,” said Assemblyman Fred Keeley (D-Boulder Creek), who advanced the legislation (AB 756).

Ft. Ord was shut down about four years ago and part of the land was turned over to California State University for its Monterey Bay campus. The hall was closed in 1996 and artwork and artifacts were removed.

As sometimes happens at the end of a legislative session, several seemingly unrelated items were lashed together and tucked into the Keeley measure. So it also would allocate $10,000 for a historic armory built by the Union during the Civil War in Copperopolis, east of Stockton; $235,000 for flood protection planning in Porterville; and $6 million for flood protection in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Republicans questioned whether the state was planning to spend too much on Stilwell Hall, which is visible from California 1, and that the expenditure would “only benefit one area” of California.

Even if Davis signs the legislation, preservationists will need to raise another $6 million to refurbish Stilwell Hall so that veterans can once again listen to music or dance in the facility’s ballroom as envisioned by the soldier they fondly called “Uncle Joe.”