Fort Harrison
Near Helena, Montana
Fort Harrison was authorized by Congress in eighteen ninety-two, and first garrisoned in eighteen ninety-five, on the western edge of Helena to garrison troops in a region newly connected by rail but still seen as requiring a federal military presence. Originally named for President Benjamin Harrison, and renamed for William Henry Harrison in nineteen oh six, the post never saw combat but served for decades as a training and administrative installation. During the First World War it processed thousands of Montana draftees.
During the Second World War it trained the First Special Service Force, a joint American and Canadian brigade. Today the original grounds house a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center and a Montana Army National Guard installation. Several of the original brick buildings from the early nineteen hundreds survive and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, making the post one of the better-preserved early-twentieth-century Army installations in the Northwest.
