Army Guard Badge set

[Jay V]

Hi Guys

Well I already posted this in the new acquisition section, but wanted to move it over to this section as well to share with all my Police Badge collectors. Hope you guys enjoy my new addition as much as I do.Jay

 

 

 

 

 

[Jay V]

#2

[Patchcollector]

That's quite a handsome set!

[patches]

Believe the top one was worn here, it's was in Washington State, it might of dropped the Army Air Force from it's title from the late 40s on?, at some point just now being called Auburn General Depot U.S. Army.

 

 

Army Air Force Depot, Auburn

 

In 1943 the government obtained 553 acres of farmland two miles southwest of Auburn, and by September that year the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had the West Coast Construction Company at work building a U.S. Army Air Force depot on the site. The depot opened on December 1, 1943, handling Lend Lease aircraft parts and equipment and used to supply airbases in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. It had 12 large warehouses, each measuring 201 feet long and 808 feet wide, enclosing a total of two million square feet of storage space.

 

Seattle architect Leonard W. Bindon (1899-1980), serving as an army captain, designed the depot warehouses. The construction went smoothly except for a serious fire on March 3, 1944, that heavily damaged a cold-storage facility under construction. A tar pot exploded, and the fire trapped three men who were working from scaffolding. Two workers, Rocco Vigna (1887-1944) of Tacoma and John Waver (1907-1944), were critically burned and died days later. There later were labor issues at the depot when, in September 1945, the army discharged civilian workers and replaced them with captured Italian soldiers. The Teamsters' Union protested and the War Department banned their use at the facility.

 

In 1946 the Auburn depot was designated as one of 15 centers in the United States to receive war dead from the Pacific. It served Washington, Western Oregon, and Northern Idaho. The remains of some 5,000 casualties, shipped from San Francisco and Seattle, were received in Auburn and delivered to next of kin. The depot also had the responsibility of disposing of surplus war materiel. In January 1956 a two-story administrative building was completed at the depot.

 

The Auburn depot went on a closure list in 1960, and was recommended, unsuccessfully, as the site for the 1962 World's Fair. In 1960, when the General Services Administration proposed building a $5 million warehouse at the Sand Point Naval Air Station in Seattle, the U.S. Congress intervened, pointing out that the vacant Auburn depot had sufficient storage space. The General Services Administration dropped the proposed Sand Point warehouse and took over the Auburn facility and its 31 buildings. This is now the General Services Administration Northwest/Arctic Region Headquarters. The former administration building serves as the General Services Administration headquarters offices.

 

At the present time (2013) the former depot is substantially intact and has largely maintained its World War II appearance. In May 1962 a 279-acre portion of the depot, which included three warehouses, was sold to private interests. The General Services Administration donated six acres to the city of Auburn and this is now GSA Park.