May 1, 2003

Plains Folk: Quonsets

Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University

The adjectives used to describe them are less than inspirational: humble, squat, practical, temporary. Let me add another: democratic. I'm talking about Quonset huts and their contribution to American democracy.

Like so many fixtures in American life, the Quonset originated as a military innovation. In 1941 the United States Navy considered options for housing men and operations in far-flung stations. The George A. Fuller construction company, at its facility near Quonset Point, Rhode Island, produced the Quonset for the navy.

The form is familiar -- a half-cylinder on the ground that is covered with corrugated metal. The frame of the original 16 x 36 foot Quonset was curved steel T-ribs, its floor tongue-and-groove and its exterior galvanized. Subsequent design revisions included flat welded ribs 2 x 3 5/8 inch, lighter plywood flooring, and a less-visible olive-drab exterior. The standard size came to be 30 x 48 feet plus 4 foot overhangs on each end. Fuller produced more than 153,000 Quonsets for the Navy.

These were the symbolic core of a much larger body of similar buildings produced during World War II and shortly after for both military and civilian uses, as the Quonset became the quonset. It originated as part of the arsenal of democracy. It evolved into a pervasive form in American life, associated with the postwar economic and demographic boom. I personally have recommended many quonsets for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

Here on the plains, quonset-style buildings were the common choice for machine sheds of the era, succeeded a generation later by more refined commercial steel buildings. We had a quonset on the family farm in western Kansas until a tornado crumpled it.

Quonsets gave great service, too, on college campuses. Due to pent-up demand for higher education, and more specifically to the veterans' educational benefits in the G.I. Bill, higher education boomed in the postwar years. College presidents resorted to quonsets to house programs, students (particularly married students), and sometimes faculty. Some of the buildings were new construction, but many were acquired from military surplus. Here was another contribution of the quonset to American democracy: housing the aspirations of thousands of veterans who previously could not have dreamed of going to college, but now were getting a handle on the American dream.

Land-grant universities especially were in an expansion mode and consequently placed heavy reliance on quonsets. The institution from which I got my graduate degrees, Oklahoma A & M, demolished its last quonsets a few years ago. According to clippings sent by my friend in the OSU archives, Steve Kite, quonsets arrived on the Aggie campus in 1946 and soon numbered at least 24. Most were still use in the 1960s, when a new round of construction began their dismantlement.

It was a rare college that had no quonsets in the late 1940s, but it is a rare one now that still has them in service. North Dakota State University, my institutional home today, has two quonset facilities. One was built in 1949 to house a wind tunnel and was converted in 1977 for use of the Architecture program. The other is a three-quonset complex built in 1948 as a Naval Reserve Armory and converted for use of the Art program in 1990. Many disparage them and they are poorly maintained but to me they symbolize what is best of America in war and peace.

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Source: Tom Isern, (701) 799-2941, isern@plainsfolk.com
Editor: Rich Mattern, (701) 231-6136, richard.mattern@ndsu.nodak.edu 

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