Farragut Naval Training Station (Idaho)
Biography
The Farragut Naval Training Station in Northern Idaho was a pivotal U.S. Navy training center during World War II. The base was established in response to the Pearl Harbor attack to provide a safe inland location for training. Ground was broken in March 1942, and by September of the same year, the base had a population of 55,000, making it the largest city in Idaho and the second-largest naval training center in the world, after Naval Station Great Lakes.
During its 30 months of operations, Farragut trained over 293,000 sailors and 25,000 service school attendees in various specialties such as gunnery, radioman, signalman, and hospital corpsman. The base was divided into six camps, each named after sailors who died in the line of duty, including some from Pearl Harbor. The facility included extensive infrastructure, including barracks, mess halls, medical dispensaries, recreation facilities, and a large 2,300-bed hospital. After the war, the base was decommissioned in June 1946 and later served as the Farragut College and Technical Institute from 1946 to 1949. In 1966, the site was converted into Farragut State Park.
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
Floyd Kelly Jr. Collection
The Floyd Kelly Jr. Collection, 1938 – 2008, consists of illustrations drawn by Mr. Kelly Jr., a book, letters, pamphlets, color photographs, black-and-white photographs, postcards, poems, certificates, newspapers, and a scrapbook. This collection contains materials related to Floyd Kelly Jr.’s personal life and military service with the United States Navy and the USS Napa (APA-157).