Badger Army Ammunition Plant, Baraboo, Sauk County, Wisconsin

On 29 October 1941, Wisconsin Congressman William H. Stevenson announced the construction of a powder and acid works to be built by Hercules Powder Company near Baraboo, Sauk County, WI. On 19 November 1941, despite protests from farmers having to relocate from the Sauk Prairie, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the $65,000,000 necessary to build the plant. The Architect-Engineer-Management service contract was awarded to the Mason and Hanger Company of New York, on 27January, 1942. By 1 March 1942, the farmers who lived there had left their farms and construction of Badger Ordnance Works, as it was known in World War II, had begun. Before the works were built, a 75,000 foot fence was erected around approximately 7,500 acres of the 10,500 acres acquired by the U.S. Army. At its peak use, later called Badger Army Ammunition Plant (BAAP), contained 1,400 buildings, over 150 miles of roads, 60 miles of rail, and countless miles of steam, water and power lines. At the height of its activity, Badger employed over 10,000 people and remained a major employment center for Sauk County for decades.

The Sauk Prairie site was one of six sites selected in 1940 and 1941 for smokeless powder plants. Its location on the Wisconsin River, its proximity to several medium-sized communities, its accessibility to both the Milwaukee Road and the Chicago & Northwestern railroads, and the excellent load-bearing characteristics of its geology made it an ideal site.

BAAP was activated three different times as a government-owned, contractor-operated munitions plant. In the periods of time when nothing was being produced, the US government put the plant in standby status with only caretaker contractor personnel and a small force of government employees on site for maintenance. The Hercules Powder Company operated the plant between January1943 and September 1945. The plant produced 271 million pounds of smokeless powder, diphenylamine, and sulfuric acid. From February 1951 through 1958, the plant produced a variety of single and double-base propellants, as well as making the component acids and solvents. The Liberty Powder Defense Corporation, a subsidiary of Olin Corporation, took over as the operating contractor on the site in March 1951. After new facilities were completed in 1954-55, the plant produced about 286 million pounds of propellant, including "Western Ball Powder," a type of smokeless powder for use in rifle ammunition, originally produced heavily in the 1940s by the Western Cartridge Company of East Alton, Illinois.

The final activation occurred from December 23, 1965 to March 24, 1975 to support the war in Vietnam. Olin Corporation and various subcontractors manufactured 95 million pounds of ball propellant, 64 million pounds of rocket propellant; and 282 million pounds of smokeless powder. BAAP was the focus of at least two antiwar protests during the Vietnam era and an unsuccessful bombing attempt by protester Karleton Armstrong, whose uncle had been killed by an accidental explosion at the plant in 1945. Armstrong eventually blew up Sterling Hall at University of Wisconsin-Madison, in protest of the war.

The plant remained in standby (idle) status after 1975. In late 1997, the Army determined that the BAAP facility was no longer needed to meet the nation's defense needs and began the decommissioning process. Subsequent efforts to define a future for the Badger property proved challenging due to the site's unusually rich natural and cultural history, environmental issues, the wide range of potential reuse options, and the complexity of local, state, national, and tribal interests involved. In 2000, the Army made a determination of excess making the remaining 7,271 acres available for disposal and in October 2002 responsibility for environmental cleanup operations and property conveyance were transferred from the Army Materiel Command to the Assistant Chief of Staff Installation Management, BRAC Division. Services included oversight of facilities maintenance and operation, property accountability, local interface with community leaders, and on-the-ground coordination of the environmental cleanup and property conveyance efforts. BAAP primary contaminants of concern were arsenic, volatile organic compounds and lead. The affected media of concern were groundwater, pond sediment, and soils. Additionally, the Army continued to monitor established land use controls.

A local Badger History Group keeps the stories and history of the plant alive through their efforts.