Farragut Naval Training Station
by Bob Gunter
The community Hall in Sandpoint,
Idaho took on a national function in 1942. The YMCA
leased the hall from the city for $1 a year to be
used as a USO club for the sailors stationed at the
Naval Training Station in Farragut, Idaho. With a
population of about 42,000, Farragut was the largest
town in Idaho, and its close proximity to Sandpoint
impacted the city in many ways. The high wages
offered, as high as a dollar an hour in some cases,
drew people from Sandpoint to Farragut. The cute
girls of Sandpoint drew many of the men of Farragut
to Sandpoint.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941 was
the causal factor for the need for more training facilities
in the United States. The great losses of the US fleet were
known nation wide and men flocked to enlist in the
navy.
USO Club in Sandpoint, Idaho
Currently The Sandpoint Community Hall.
Click photo to enlarge
In June of 1942 over 40,000 men joined
the navy. Numbers like this made it a necessity for more
training facilities and in March of 1942 the news that Lake
Pend Oreille had been chosen was released. The Walter Butler
Company of St. Paul, Minnesota was chosen to construct the
station.
In May of 1942 President Franklin D.
Roosevelt named the new site in Idaho Farragut after the
famous Union Admiral David G. Farragut. It was Admiral
Farragut who said during the raid of Mobile Bay, "Damn
the torpedoes, full speed ahead."
The training station was to have six
training units designed for 5,000 men. After a unit was
completed the training started while the next unit was under
construction. The station also had a school area designed
for 5,000 personnel. The hospital eventually had 2,000 beds
dedicated to caring for the Farragut trainees and staff. A
housing project for 300 Navy families was built; there were
also five dormitories, officer's quarters, an auditorium, a
recreational building, and two chapels on the base. Add to
this the auxiliary buildings necessary to maintain a station
of over 30,000 people and it is easy to see why Farragut was
Idaho's largest town.
As each unit was completed it was named
in honor of navy men who had been killed in action and who
had received the Congressional Medal of Honor. They were,
Captain Mervyn Bennion, Seaman 1st Class James Ward, Lt.
Commander John C. Waldron, Rear Admiral Norman Scott, Chief
Watertender Oscar Peterson, and Commander Howard Gilmore.
Thousands of men and women trained at the
United States Naval Training Station at Farragut, Idaho and
each year many "old salts" return to renew
friendships made long ago. Farragut is not the same as they
knew it. Nearly all of the buildings are gone but as these
men and women stand in what is now a state park they see
what others cannot see. Through their memories they can see
the Farragut of the war years and remember what it was like
both good and bad.
All photographs have been used with permission of the Bonner County Museum.
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