Headquarters U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Fact Sheets

186 - 250.16 The Corps of Engineers' Grecian District, 1947-1949

Press Operations — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 13:00:00 GMT

When World War II ended in 1945, Greece emerged battered and broken. German occupation had left the country’s infrastructure in shambles with ports bombed, roads destroyed, rail networks crippled, and the vital Corinth Canal blocked by wreckage. The economy teetered on the brink of collapse, and political instability grew as a communist insurgency threatened to seize control. Recognizing the strategic importance of keeping Greece within the Western sphere of influence, the United States responded under the newly announced Truman Doctrine, which pledged American aid to nations resisting communist influence.

183 - 250.13 Three key flood control acts of the early 20th century

Press Operations — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 13:00:00 GMT

In the late nineteenth century, Americans increasingly settled and farmed the major river valleys of the country—the Mississippi, Ohio, and Sacramento, among others. More densely populated floodplains soon resulted in increasing damages from floods. The rivers also remained essential transportation corridors, a way for goods and people to move across the vast interior of the country, even as railroads expanded their reach.

184 - 250.14 The Corps of Engineers' Mediterranean Division

Press Operations — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 13:00:00 GMT

In the tense geopolitical environment of the Cold War, the United States recognized that military power alone would not secure its influence in strategically vital regions. Infrastructure such as airfields, ports, roads, and communications networks was equally critical to sustaining operations, building alliances, and projecting stability. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) played a central role in the effort to provide such infrastructure around the world, and one of its earliest and most influential overseas commands was the Mediterranean Division.

185 -250.15 Engineering Victory: U.S. Army Engineers in the Mexican War

Press Operations — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 13:00:00 GMT

At the dusty edge of a newly drawn battlefield in southern Texas, with the dry heat of May thick on the wind, First Lt. Jacob E. Blake—Topographical Engineer and veteran of the Florida Wars—carried out one of the war’s most daring feats of reconnaissance. A West Point graduate of 1833, Blake stood with General Zachary Taylor and 2,300 American troops as they prepared to confront a much larger Mexican force near Palo Alto on May 1, 1846.

170 Hurricane Katrina

Press Operations — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 14:09:00 GMT

Twenty years ago two powerful hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, struck the Gulf Coast within weeks of one another. Both storms caused widespread damage across portions of Louisiana and Mississippi. Combined, the storms led to more than 1,900 deaths and $143 billion in damages in the southeastern United States. In some areas Katrina’s storm surge extended ten miles inland. In New Orleans it overwhelmed many of the levees and floodwalls designed and constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to protect the city from hurricanes. There were 50 breaches of the system. Eighty percent of New Orleans flooded, and the nation watched transfixed as thousands of survivors were rescued from rooftops by the Coast Guard and other first responders.

181 - 250.11 Echoes from the Basement: The 511th Engineer Ponton Company Collection and the Memory of War

Press Operations — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 13:00:00 GMT

Historical memory is not solely preserved in official archives or grand museums. Sometimes, it resides quietly in forgotten boxes, waiting decades to speak. Such was the case when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Office of History received an incredible donation offer: a privately discovered collection belonging to Cpl. Herbert Wanzer of the 511th Engineer Ponton Company, United States Army. Located by a New Jersey resident sorting through her basement years after purchasing her home, the timeworn materials hinted at a hidden chapter of World War II history.

182 - 250.12 USACE and the Advent of Radio Transmissions

Press Operations — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 13:00:00 GMT

The development of radio communication in the early twentieth century, with the ability to transmit sound without wires across long distances, was a revolutionary event. The popularity and use of radio by the American public in the early 1920s was such that radio quickly became indispensable in the lives of the country’s citizens. The Army, too, soon realized how useful radio was and in 1921 began establishing fixed stations to build a national radio net. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) also recognized the potential value of radio communication. In 1923 the Memphis District equipped dredges and other large vessels, as well as the district headquarters, with radio equipment. Doing so allowed USACE floating plant to report changing river conditions almost instantly.

180 - 250.10 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in WWII and the Birth of Military Construction

Press Operations — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 13:00:00 GMT

World War II marked a transformative period for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), adding a military construction mission to its role as primarily a civil works agency and reshaping it into the military's engineering and construction powerhouse. The Corps expanded dramatically in scale, scope, and strategic importance, influencing the outcome of the war and laying the foundation for its postwar construction mission.

179 - 250.09 Civil War Defensive Fortifications of Washington, DC

Press Operations — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 13:00:00 GMT

If there was one thing that most occupied the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during the American Civil War, it was defending the capital of the Union. Washington, D.C., was located only a hundred miles from the Confederate capital of Richmond and was sandwiched between one state in rebellion and another with strong Southern sympathies. As U.S. Army officers took sides in the conflict and assumed volunteer commands with their state forces, there were only thirty regular commissioned engineers that remained with the Corps through the war. Half of them were on duty in the capital to build its defenses. Eventually those defenses would surround Washington and make it one of the most heavily fortified cities in the world.

178 - 250.08 Army Engineers during the Depression and the New Deal, 1929-1941

Press Operations — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 13:00:00 GMT

There is nothing new about 21st-century discussions in the United States about federal economic stimulus efforts, recovery acts, and infrastructure programs. In fact, nearly one hundred years ago, the economic crisis that was the Great Depression led to very similar debates and responses from the federal government. The Depression, the most severe and far-reaching economic crisis in the country’s history, was a turning point both for the nation and for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. No previous recession compared to the economic and social turmoil and ruin that took place prior to World War II.

177 - 250.07 Two Generations of the Haupt Family Contributed to U.S. Development

Press Operations — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 13:00:00 GMT

One of the perhaps lesser-known engineering feats of the American Civil War was the organization and management of the Union Army of the Potomac’s railroads. Under the leadership of Brig. Gen. Herman Haupt, the transportation of Union troops, wounded soldiers, and supplies was made rapid and efficient. Haupt was both a talented builder, quickly constructing and repairing damaged bridges and railroad lines, and a skilled administrator, ensuring the trains moved effectively and in a timely manner.

176 - 250.06 The Collection of Maj. Gen. Hugh J. Casey

Press Operations — Fri, 02 May 2025 13:00:00 GMT

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Office of History is fortunate to hold in its Research Collection the papers of Maj. Gen. Hugh John Casey (1898-1981). General Casey served as General Douglas MacArthur’s Chief Engineer in the Philippines, New Guinea, and the Occupation of Japan following World War II.

175 - 250.05 The Corps’ reluctant journey from hydropower skeptic to the nation’s largest producer

Press Operations — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 13:00:00 GMT

Today the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is the largest generator of hydropower in the nation, with 75 power-producing dams housing 356 individual generating units. The Corp’s hydropower assets generate more than 70 million megawatt-hours per year of clean renewable energy, enough to power 10 cities the size of Seattle.

173 - 250.03 Corps of Engineers and Coastal Defense

Press Operations — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 13:00:00 GMT

As dawn broke on September 14, 1814, a haze of gunsmoke still hung over Baltimore Harbor, the result of a relentless 25-hour British bombardment that had lit the sky with fire and thunder through the night. But when morning light pierced the smoke, it revealed an inspired sight: a massive thirty-by-forty-two-foot American flag flying proudly over Fort McHenry, a First System Fortification (1794-1808) built in 1798 by the Army Corps of Engineers.

174 - 250.0 A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Tug and its Master - Paintings

Press Operations — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 13:00:00 GMT

In 2018 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers received a donation of paintings of Corps vessels (“floating plant”) painted by Norman Johnson. The subjects of Johnson’s paintings had a special meaning to him – they were vessels that his father, also named Norman Johnson, had served with or on either as crew or as master (captain). Along with the paintings came a small stack of photos and documents from his father’s Corps of Engineers career. Further research revealed a fascinating story of the elder Mr. Johnson’s employment as well as the vessel on which he spent much of his career.

169 - USACE Response to COVID-19

Press Operations — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 13:00:00 GMT

In 2020 the nation faced one of its toughest public health challenges in decades, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers helped lead a national response with both flexibility and resilience. COVID-19 first appeared in late 2019 in East Asia and quickly spread around the world. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global pandemic. Two days later, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency. In the weeks that followed schools and businesses closed, and millions of Americans began working from home. Less than a year later, in January 2021, the United States had counted 24 million cases of COVID-19 and over 400,000 deaths attributed to it.

168 - Pittsburgh District Photos Illustrate Decades of USACE Dedication to Regional Economic Development

Press Operations — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 16:34:00 GMT

Two centuries ago, one of the first civil works projects the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers undertook was clearing out hazardous sandbars on the Ohio River below Pittsburgh. In 1824 the first Rivers and Harbors Act authorized improvements to the Ohio River because it was a key waterway for settling the new states and territory of the country’s great “northwest.”

172 - 250.02 General Survey Act and USACE Civil Works Origins

Press Operations — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

On a blustery winter night in February 1823, the Steamer Tennessee plowed her way upstream through the twisting currents of the Mississippi River near Natchez. It was snowing, and visibility on the river was poor when it struck a snag and sunk in turbulent waters. More than sixty passengers—men, women, and children—died that night in one of the first great river disasters in U.S. history. News of the tragedy drew public attention nationwide and worked in concert with a variety of other factors to drive passage of two vital pieces of Congressional legislation in 1824—a General Survey Act authorizing Army Engineers to conduct surveys for roads and canals and the first Rivers and Harbors Act to fund navigational improvements on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

167 - Remembering President Carter’s Water Resources Legacy

Press Operations — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 14:00:00 GMT

President Jimmy Carter, elected in 1976 at the height of an era of new environmental regulations, was highly critical of water resources projects that he considered too costly, inefficient, or environmentally damaging. Many of those older projects had seen little progress in over a decade when Carter entered office. Carter’s so-called “hit list” originally aimed to eliminate thirty U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects that he saw as both economically unjustifiable and overly harmful to the environment. But after aggressively scrutinizing several such projects and wrangling with Congress over their fate, only nine major projects were deauthorized, and three were extensively modified, by 1978. For example, the Tennessee-Tombigbee project, a massive undertaking for inland navigation across the southeast, faced significant environmental opposition and carried a high price tag but eventually proceeded with substantial mitigation measures, while the Meramac Dam project in Missouri attracted similar concerns and was ultimately deauthorized.

171 - West Point in the Early Republic

Press Operations — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 16:00:00 GMT

The idea of an American military academy at West Point, New York, dates back to the nation’s origins and the American Revolution, which highlighted significant deficiencies in military training, leadership, and engineering expertise in the new country. The reliance on foreign officers like Baron von Steuben and Thaddeus Kościuszko to instill discipline and train soldiers underscored the lack of a standardized system to develop competent leaders domestically. Additionally, the challenges in coordinating effective battlefield strategies and constructing fortifications demonstrated the need for specialized education in military tactics and engineering. These shortcomings underscored the importance of establishing a military academy to provide professional training, develop skilled officers, and ensure a self-sufficient and capable military force for the young nation.