Ordnance museum coming to Fort Lee

When the U.S. Army Ordnance Museum completes its relocation from Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland to Fort Lee in 2011, the Tri-Cities area will be home to one of the largest military museum complexes in the country.

The museum, which holds a large collection of historic military tanks, artillery and other weapons, will join the U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum and the U.S. Army Women's Museum on the base.

The three will offer a wealth of military history to visitors and soldiers in training, while creating one of the largest museum campuses in the East Coast outside the Washington area, said David Schulte, executive director of Petersburg Area Regional Tourism.

The ordnance museum is moving to Fort Lee as part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission process, bringing to the local installation nearly 200 "macro-artifacts," which are large tanks, vehicles and large pieces of artillery.

The first phase of the move began last month when 60 medium and heavy tanks and large artillery pieces from the early 1900s through World War II were transported to Fort Lee. This is the largest move in the history of the U.S. Army museum system, said Joe Rainer, director of the ordnance museum.

He said three other phases are to be completed in two years. The construction of a closed structure near Fort Lee's main entrance and next to the Women's and Quartermaster museums is scheduled to start in October 2010 and is to expected to be completed by the end of 2011.

The museum, which was started in 1919 at the end of World War I, also holds smaller and more modern pieces that will be transported once construction of the museum is completed.

"During World War II, ordnance soldiers and intelligence teams were sent to capture any enemy artillery they could . . . so they would study it, and that sort of continued on during the Korean War and Vietnam War," said Rainer. "Our mission is to use these artifacts to teach the soldiers about the history and pride of the ordnance and the development of technologies."

Rainer said the museum will continue to serve soldiers in training to provide some the history of the combat technologies. The three museums will also continue an educational program at Fort Lee that helps local students and teachers learn about the Army, military technologies, war history and related topics.

"Our museum campus is going to be supporting all the sustainment soldiers," he said. "I also hope that we can help out the Petersburg-Colonial Heights-Hopewell economy. It will be a major draw being a huge museum campus, and we can really boost tourism in the region."

Schulte said the museum will be a great addition to the historic attractions in the region.

"We think it is going to make Fort Lee one of the top military history destinations in the country. I don't believe any other region in the country will have three prominent military museums like Fort Lee," he said.

Schulte thinks visitors from across the U.S. will come to Fort Lee's museum complex, with a positive impact on the local economy.

"We know that people currently come from all over the country to see the U.S. Army Women's Museum and the Quartermaster Museum, and we expect that there will be a lot of people interested in coming to see the ordnance museum," Schulte said.

"We are very fortunate to have them," he said.

Contact Luz Lazo at (804) 649-6058 or .