[CPEO-MEF] REUSE: "Military housing finds new life as condominium development, prison camp, " Duluth, MN

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

Military housing finds new life as condominium development, prison camp
Duluth's Aspenwood Condominiums have served a wide array of residents.

By  Peter Passi 
Duluth News Tribune (MN)
April 28, 2021

The U.S. Air Force constructed 60 buildings in 1960, providing 240 units of housing for military personnel at its Duluth base. At the time, the development was known as the Capehart Housing Area.

It occupies 114 acres of land below Arrowhead Road, accessed off Selfridge Drive.

For a short while, 5th District City Councilor Janet Kennedy’s family called Capehart home. Her late father, William Arnold Kennedy, a Korean War veteran, served in the Air Force. She said it was that service that first brought her family and many other people of color to Duluth. 

“We have a lot of African heritage families who are here just for that reason. They were military migrants,” Kennedy said. “There was a sense of community. We were all pretty connected through the air base.”

When the Air Force closed its Duluth base in 1982, Capehart emptied out. The base closure, combined with the deactivation of a local air defense computer operation, eliminated about 1,375 jobs and dealt a painful economic blow to the community at a time when it was already reeling from U.S. Steel Corp.’s decision to shutter its mill in Gary-New Duluth. The Duluth base had an annual payroll of about $30 million.

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/community/history/6958682-Military-housing-finds-new-life-as-condominium-development-prison-camp

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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