Fort MacArthur

Fort MacArthur began on September 14, 1888, when an executive order by President Grover Cleveland assigned an unnamed military reservation to improve the defenses of Los Angeles Harbor. Additional reservation land was purchased in 1897 and 1910, and the site was geographically divided into the Lower, Middle, and Upper Reservations. On October 31, 1914, as World War I began, the permanent harbor defense was officially named Fort MacArthur in honor of Lt. General Arthur MacArthur, a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient and father of General Douglas MacArthur. From 1914 to 1917, World War I hastened construction of a training center, and after the war Fort MacArthur was regularly used for training and housing California National Guard units, the Citizens Military Training Corps, Army Reserve units, and the Civilian Conservation Corps. As World War II began, the first 1,000 draftees arrived in February 1941, and after the December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor, Fort MacArthur prepared for an imminent attack amid reports of enemy submarines and airplanes on the West Coast. In 1942, the garrison wrote and produced the morale-boosting stage show Hey, Rookie!, which became an instant success and ran for nine months at the Belasco Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. In 1943, funds raised by the show enabled the command to build two swimming pools, one on the Middle Reservation and one on the Upper Reservation. In 1944, Olympians Howard and Velma Ploessel managed the Aquacades, vaudeville-style shows featuring the Southern California Aquabelles; the first was performed on May 28, 1944, the second drew more than 2,000 people, and the Aquabelles later took the show on the road to raise $26 million in War Bonds. After World War II ended in September 1945 and demobilization followed, Fort MacArthur continued as a training facility for reserves, though never as active as during the war. From the 1950s through the 1970s, the pool served soldiers and was opened to the public, becoming a local community treasure. In 1975, the military transferred the Lower Reservation, now Cabrillo Marina, and the Upper Reservation, now Angels Gate Park, to the City of Los Angeles, whose Department of Recreation and Parks took over management of the pool facility, where generations of families learned to swim. In 1982, the Middle Reservation became housing and administration for the US Air Force. During the 1980s and 1990s, the original Hey Rookie Pool name fell out of use and the pool became known as Gaffey Pool. In 1997, the 54-year-old pool was drained and closed because funds were lacking for major repairs, and its decommissioning led to years of neglect, overgrown vegetation, and vulnerability to vandalism. In 2009, Fort MacArthur Museum staff and volunteers secured a grant of nearly $7,000,000 from the Port of Los Angeles China Shipping Aesthetic Mitigation Fund to restore Hey Rookie Pool so it could again serve the community and honor the men whose stage show raised the money to build it. In 2014, the City of LA and the community collaborated to restore Hey Rookie Pool and design a new recreational pool facility, and from 2015 to 2017 pool restoration and new construction began.

Los Angeles, California · United States