Of the 100,000 troops that go to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin each year to train, hundreds of them might live in barracks built during World War II.
The Army is relocating five 83-year-old barracks to make room for new officer quarters and as a way to save money.
“This barracks relocation costs less than building new,” Tonya Townsell, a spokesperson for Fort McCoy told Task & Purpose.
New barracks are also underway as part of major building project on the base, according to an Army release, including two new 48,000-square-foot, four-story Collective Training Officers Quarters buildings with a $55.7 million price tag. Another barracks built in 2020 cost $20.6 million and a 2023 building cost the Army $27 million.
The WWII barracks relocation project, on the other hand, cost just $400,000 each. A set of similar barracks buildings that were moved in 2023 are able to house 50 troops while on base for training.
“There are significant benefits to each type of building,” Townsell said. The new barracks have modern amenities while the relocated barracks bring more “unit cohesiveness” because “many units appreciate the ability to have their unit in their own building.”
The barracks will house troops that visit for training at the Wisconsin base which hosts more than 100,000 troops from active duty, reserves and National Guard each year. Fort McCoy has dozens of ranges for live fire training, shoot houses, trench complexes, training villages and a simulation center for combined and brigade-level exercises.
Since WWII, the base has also offered cold weather training for various units.
It’s not the first time that McCoy officials have moved old buildings. In March 2023, Devooght House Lifters relocated four buildings, each of which can hold 50 soldiers, across the base. Those barracks are now operational, according to the Army.
To move a building, contractors dig out around the buildings’ foundations and put beams underneath the structures. Then, workers used hydraulic power to jack them up, slide axles under them, and take them out on a “big joystick controller,” Directorate of Public Words general engineer Gareth Ferguson described in a video about the 2023 relocation project.
“Top speed of a building, as far as the contractors are concerned, is nine miles per hour,” Ferguson said.
Throughout January and February, contractors are moving the barracks while the ground is frozen and will lay the concrete foundation when it gets warmer.
The barracks were originally built in 1942 during the base’s construction of Fort McCoy’s cantonment area. An Aug. 28, 1942 article in The Real McCoy newspaper said the barrack’s first occupants were Camp McCoy’s military police, according to an Army release. In 1942, the base built more than 1,500 buildings, including the barracks, at a cost of $30 million, or nearly $545 million today.
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