U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Headquarters

25/09/2026

25/09/2026

Located in the heart of the Ozarks in south-central Missouri, Fort Leonard Wood is a place every Army engineer officer knows well. Home to the U.S. Army Engineer School, every newly commissioned engineer officer in the Army attends a program called the Engineer Basic Officer Leader Course at Fort Leonard Wood.

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Located in the heart of the Ozarks in south-central Missouri, Fort Leonard Wood is a place every Army engineer officer knows well. Home to the U.S. Army...

25/09/2026

24/09/2026

Think you know what’s hiding inside that concrete? 👀

If you guessed rebar, you’re spot on!

Reinforcing bar, better known as rebar, plays a critical role in strengthening concrete structures. Concrete is great at handling compression, but it isn’t nearly as strong when it comes to tension. That’s where rebar comes in.

Embedded within the concrete, rebar helps carry tensile forces, control cracking and improve the overall strength and durability of the structure.

From barracks to other concrete-intensive facilities, this reinforcement helps ensure the structures we build can stand strong and support the mission for years to come.

24/09/2026

24/09/2026

23/09/2026

Just a short drive from Iowa City lies one of the Midwest’s most unique geological treasures. Managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District, the Devonian Fossil Gorge at Coralville Lake preserves a 375-million-year-old ocean floor.

During the Devonian Period, the region that is now a landlocked Midwestern state was positioned south of the equator and covered by a warm, shallow tropical sea. Today, managing this site is a unique part of the USACE environmental stewardship mission, offering visitors a rare opportunity to step back in time.

Read more about the Devonian Fossil Gorge from the latest edition of the Tower Times: https://www.dvidshub.net/news/575132/hidden-earth-revealed-water-exploring-devonian-fossil-gorge-coralville-lake

23/09/2026

Fun bit of history: Michael J. Kirwan Dam & Reservoir wasn’t always Michael J. Kirwan Dam & Reservoir.

This photo from June 8, 1965, shows workers beneath the original West Branch Dam & Reservoir sign, back when the under-construction project was still named for the West Branch Mahoning River it impounds.

Five years later, Congress passed Public Law 91-639 and officially renamed the project for Michael J. Kirwan, a longtime congressman from northeastern Ohio who championed reservoir construction throughout the region.

As our trusty history book, "The Headwaters District: A History of the Pittsburgh District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers" explains:

"Mr. President, you will surely recall crossing the Mahoning River two or three times during your visit to Youngstown's busy steel plants last fall," Congressman Mike Kirwan wrote in his May 1941 letter to Franklin Roosevelt. "The Mahoning River is now at the point of drying up after its flood waters threatened interruption of production in January. That river is 80% sewage, and we are called the 'wonder people of America' because we drink it and it doesn't kill us. I was foreman in a steel plant here for twenty years and can recall sending men to shunt sewage away from the water intakes."

Michael J. Kirwan was appealing to the President, Congress and to anyone who would listen in 1941 for quick action on Mahoning basin water troubles. He declared that repeated flooding interfered with steel mill production, that strong men collapsed from the stench of the polluted stream, and that low water flows hampered national defense. He said steel mills used and reused the Mahoning so many times that both water taps in Youngstown homes delivered hot water, and that ducks never landed on the Mahoning for fear of being cooked alive. People and industry in the Mahoning basin had built Milton and Meander Creek dams without a cent contributed by the Federal Government, though the Mahoning Valley paid more in taxes than some states. Floods and droughts in the Mahoning basin disrupted production of 10% of the nation's steel, essential to any defense program.

"There is only one way to remedy this threatening situation," Kirwan told the President, "and that is by the immediate construction of Berlin and Mosquito Creek dams on the Mahoning and one of its principal tributaries."

23/09/2026