Military Construction

VA Hospitals

In 1946, military construction work in the Ohio River Division was centralized at the Louisville District, but hospitals for returning veterans were needed and General Omar Bradley, head of the Veterans Administration, asked the Corps of Engineers to build 80 hospitals throughout the nation.
    The Pittsburgh District was made responsible in 1946 and 1947 for building three of those hospitals: a general hospital at Altoona and a general and a neuropsychiatry hospital at Pittsburgh. The district located the sites, awarded contracts to architect-engineering firms for design and negotiated construction contracts. The general hospital at Altoona, smallest of the three, was completed in July 1950 at a cost of $5.7 million and turned over to the VA. The Neuropsychiatry Hospital and General Medical Hospital at Pittsburgh followed in short order. The designs were thought so well done that other Corps of Engineers districts used the plans, adapting them to different terrain as necessary.

Korean War

     When the Cold War warmed in Korea in 1951, the Pittsburgh District was again mobilized for military construction. In November of that year, Wilfred Backlight moved into the supply and procurement area and Jacque Minnotte became chief, Construction Division. As part of the massive emergency buildup for the counterattack toward the 38th parallel, the engineers at Pittsburgh began "rethreading," as the expression went, facilities at the ordnance plants at Morgantown, Ravenna and Meadville, meaning renovation of the existing plants and construction of additions. At Youngstown and Greater Pittsburgh airfields, originally built as fighter interceptor bases, the Pittsburgh District installed facilities for refueling and rearming the big bombers and cargo planes of the Strategic Air Command and the Military Air Transport Command.
     In April 1952, a column of soldiers and heavy equipment, the first elements of the Pittsburgh Air Defense Command, rumbled through the streets of McKeesport toward Pittsburgh to set up a ring of 90mm antiaircraft guns on 12 sites selected by the Corps of Engineers. District Executive Assistant Frank Stocker recalled the antiaircraft sites were chosen in such a hurry that their locations were identified relative to the red, orange or green belts of a Gulf Oil highway map. The "ack-ack" boys lived in tents during the winter of 1952-53 and coordinated  the air defense system through ground observers on hilltops and skyscrapers, while the Corps built permanent gun sites and installed a radar system. Joe Renouf, as resident engineer, nursed these projects through the winter for occupancy in late February 1953.

NIKE Sites

     The "brinkmanship" policies of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles during the first Eisenhower Administration seemed to make surprise air attack an even greater threat, and in 1954 the NIKE surface-to-air missile, which resembled a telephone pole with fins, was added to the defensive arsenal.
     The Pittsburgh District located 12 NIKE launching and control sites around Pittsburgh and eight around Cleveland. At a cost of around a million dollars per site, the Pittsburgh District hastily built three underground missile storage structures, personnel shelters with 6.7-foot cinder walls and heavy blast doors to withstand shock waves, missile-assembly test buildings, generator buildings, latrines, administration buildings and access roads. Because it was necessary that the troop, known as the "Buck Rogers" boys, be no more than 10 minutes from their missiles, housing and necessary electric, water and sewage facilities were later added.
     In 1959, the system became more elaborate when sophisticated NIKE-HERCULES missiles were placed at six sites and a Missile Master, a fire direction center and headquarters for the 31st Artillery Brigade, was built at Oakdale. Work on the Missile Master, under local direction of resident engineer Ralph Patt, involved construction of an operations building for radar and communication paraphernalia, big radar towers, a power generator building, plus support facilities: barracks, mess hall, warehouse, repair shops, heating plant, utilities and roads.
     The Missile Master control center and six missile batteries were operational by late 1960. The 3rd Missile Battalion of the First Artillery manned the batteries at Elrama, Irwin and Herminie south and east of Pittsburgh; and the Duquesne Greys (2nd Missile Battalion, 178th Artillery, Pennsylvania National Guard) manned the batteries at Coraopolis, West View and Dorseyville north and west of the city. Army family housing units were constructed in the vicinity of eight of the Pittsburgh sites.

Army Reserve Centers

     The Pittsburgh District also became responsible in 1955 for construction of Army Reserve Centers for reserve unit training, throughout the area. The Corps first finished construction of reserve centers at Uniontown and Washington, Pennsylvania, and Akron and Canton, Ohio. Reserve centers typically had classroom and office space, assembly buildings, maintenance shops, paved parking area and access roads, and were built for permanent use with tile-covered concrete floors, brick-faced block walls and beautifully landscaped grounds. By 1961, the Pittsburgh District had completed or had under contract the Army Reserve Centers at Akron, Bellaire, Cadiz, Canton, Cleveland, Geneva, Painesville and Warren, Ohio; at Altoona, Brookville, Butler, Clearfield, DuBois, Farrrell, Franklin, Greensburg, Indiana, Johnstown, Meadville, New Castle, New Kensington, Oil City, Punxsutawney, St. Marys, Uniontown and Washington, Pennsylvania; and at Weirton and Wheeling, West Virginia.
     Military construction by the district ended in 1961, when the Chief of Engineers made an effort to reduce administrative costs through consolidation of military functions. Among the 12 engineer districts that lost military construction was Pittsburgh, when such work in the Ohio River Division was centralized at Louisville. For the same reason of economy, further consolidation occurred in 1970 and the military projects in the Pittsburgh area were thereafter handled out of the Baltimore District.