The University of Arizona Press
When: Friday, February 2, 2024
Time: 6:30 – 8 p.m., MDT
Where: Bright Side Bookshop, 18 N San Francisco St., Flagstaff, AZ
John Westerlund will celebrate the 20th anniversary of his book’s publication and sign his book, Arizona’s War Town, at Bright Side Books as part of the First Friday celebration in downtown Flagstaff. Wine will be offered.
About the book:
Arizona’s War Town tells the story of how the Navajo Ordnance Depot in Flagstaff contributed significantly to the city’s rapid growth during the war years as it brought considerable social, cultural, and economic change to the region. A clearing in the ponderosa pine forest called Volunteer Prairie met the military’s criteria for a munitions depot—open terrain, a cool climate, plentiful water, and proximity to a railroad—and it was also sufficiently inland to be safe from the threat of coastal invasion. Constructing a depot of 800 ammunition bunkers, each the size of a 2,000-square-foot home, called for a force of 8,000 laborers, and Flagstaff became a boom town overnight as construction workers and their families poured in from nearby Indian reservations and as far away as the Midwest and South. More than 2,000 were retained as permanent employees—a larger workforce than Flagstaff’s total pre-war employment roster.
About the author:
John S. Westerlund served for 26 years as a U.S. Army field artillery officer, retiring as a lieutenant colonel, and has taught at Northern Arizona University and at the Ecole Supérieure de Guerre in Paris.
