Iowa has had three army posts called Fort Des Moines. The first, a ramshackle outpost along the Des Moines River in what’s now Lee County, existed from 1834 to 1837. The second was built at the confluence of the Racoon and Des Moines rivers in 1843 to stop the Sauk and Meskwaki peoples from returning to eastern Iowa after they were driven out. When the army left in 1846, settlers moved in and used it as the center of a new community.
In 1851, the city of Fort Des Moines was incorporated, and six years later the name was shortened to Des Moines. (It could have been different. The officer in charge of constructing the fort wanted to call it Fort Racoon, but he was overruled.)
The third Fort Des Moines stands out from the other two as a place where Black Americans and women looking to serve their country during wartime found opportunities for the first time.
The Fort Des Moines Provisional Army Officer Training School was opened in south Des Moines in 1901. Although Black soldiers had continually served their country since the Civil War, the segregated units in which they served were always commanded by white officers. That changed in World War I, and Fort Des Moines was a key site for training Black officers. After the war, many of the men trained at Fort Des Moines would make significant contributions to their communities and the nation.
Although President Woodrow Wilson’s administration tried to limit the enlistment of Black Americans during the war, pushback from the NAACP and other Black leaders prevailed. Officers at Fort Des Moines would not only serve bravely in the war, but afterwards would go on to make significant contributions to their communities and the nation.
World War II brought another milestone moment to Fort Des Moines. During the first year of the war, Congress created the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAACs, later renamed the Women’s Army Corps or WACs) to allow women to serve in noncombat roles. Fort Des Moines was a major training site for the new volunteers, and although most of the women accepted for training were white, it was open to women of all races. More than 65,000 women would be trained there before the end of the war.
The first class of WAACs at Fort Des Moines in 1942 consisted of 440 women chosen from a pool of 35,000 applicants. That class included 40 Black women.
Historian Rachele Chase, author of Creating the Black Utopia of Buxton, Iowa, has researched the only battalion led by Black women officers to serve overseas during World War II: the 6888th Central Postal Director Battalion. Their motto was “No Mail, Low Morale.”
Several officers trained at Fort Des Moines led the “six-triple-eight,” including Charity Adams, who reached the rank of lieutenant colonel before the war’s end, making her the highest-ranking Black woman officer to serve in the conflict. Tyler Perry and Blair Underwood adapted the story of the 6888th into a yet-to-be-released movie starring Kerry Washington.
The end of the war brought major changes to Fort Des Moines. At first it was used for veteran’s housing, and in 1949, a section of the post was reassigned to serve as an Army Reserve training center, a function it still performs today. In the 1950s, much of the property was sold off, with part of it becoming Blank Park Zoo.
In 1974, the now smaller Fort Des Moines was designated a National Historic Landmark, in recognition of the important role it played in opening doors for Black soldiers and women who served the auxiliaries. That history is preserved in the Fort Des Moines Museum and Education Center, 6455 Chaffee Rd.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s December 2023 issue as a part of Peak Iowa, a collection of fascinating state stories, sites and people.
