The early history of Plum Brook

My recent article on space exploration pioneer Mary Sherman Morgan, whose rocket fuel helped get America's first satellite into space, did have at least one misstatement of fact. It originally said that Plum Brook Ordnance Works in Erie County had been created "after the U.S. entry into World War II." (It's been corrected online.)John Blakeman (quoted in my original article) wrote to me to correct the record, and his email was interesting. With his permission, I quote here the relevant portion of his message: Importantly — and with great modern implications — the Plum Brook Ordnance Works was not "created after the U.S. entered into World War II to manufacture explosives...." For the US, WWII did not begin until 7 December 1941. The Plum Brook Ordnance Works was begun in January, 1941, when 159 families in Perkins and adjacent townships were summarily given eviction papers and land-value checks; and were instructed to leave their farms and houses within several weeks, so outright construction of the new Plum Brook Ordnance Works could begin. Because we were not at war with any European or Asian countries, this harsh government land take-over generated a great deal of local bitterness and anger. The details of this event are presented in my narrated digital slide show, "The History of the Plum Brook Ordnance Works." As bad as this seemingly arbitrary confiscation of private property by the federal government was in early 1941, before we were at war with anyone, it was further exacerbated by the refusal of the War Department to return or re-sell any of the confiscated lands to original owners at the end of WWII. Although the war brought peace to the world, the rise of the Soviet Union and its expansion into Eastern Europe, with the creation of the "Iron Curtain," caused the War Department to retain ordnance facilities across the country, including Plum Brook. For over a decade, from 1945 to 1958, when NASA acquired its first portion of the Works, the land remained out of private hands. Consequently, there has been for two or three generations a lingering bitterness over this land confiscation; particularly that none of the lands were returned or re-sold to former occupants at the end of WWII. Then, in the late 50s and early 60s, the entire site finally came into the hands of NASA. Many in the community still hold identifiable resentment against first, the War Department in the 40s and 50s, then against NASA, starting in the 50s and 60s. It is important for local citizens to know that NASA played no part in the Ordnance Works' original land acquisitions, nor in the decision by defense officials to retain those lands after WWII. NASA was not a party to those original confiscations; the agency did not even exist. In fact, NASA did sell many hundreds of acres to willing buyers excess agricultural buyers outside the NASA fence back in the 1980s; lands that could play no role in NASA's aerospace activities or their related public safety issues. A decided distinction between the actions of the War Department before, during, and after WWII must be clearly separated from NASA's ownership and management of the former Plum Brook Ordnance Works in more recent decades. -- John Blakeman