Fort Holabird Park Cleanup???

I brought this up in passing once, but wanted to get a feel on where the group stood before spending a bunch of time doing (more) research…

In nearby Dundalk is Fort Holabird Park. I think it’s owned by Baltimore City Rec Parks. Well, some of you may not know that the Army’s Fort Holabird is where the Bantam, Willys, and Ford Light Reconnaissance Vehicle prototypes were tested, and where the Bantam won the bid to build “Jeeps” for WWII.

I visited the area a year ago after finding out about it myself during the Bantam 70th anniversary festival. There are only three things left to the historic base, the Officers Club (Vietnam Vets of America), the baseball diamonds, and “Tank Hill” . . . the three test hills the prototypes were trialed on. The hills are pretty much grown over, and you can’t even tell they are there, unless you are on top of them.

Here’s my thought: See if Parks and Recreation is interested, and offer to do some community service cleaning up the site. I guess I see a few benefits – clean up the park appearance, maybe they can be used for sledding hills (if it ever snows) or bike park, bring some attention back to the site’s historical significance, especially with the 75th Jeep anniversary coming up in a few, and maybe even bring some attention to the club.

First I wanted to see what everyone here thought. If there’s interest, I’d be willing to get the ball rolling. I’d even like to try to get some attention from the Bantam Festival Organization, and if possible, maybe even Jeep themselves??

Post up – lemme know what you think.

Great idea! I am curious what others think. After the clean-up maybe we could even get a small Jeep show started? I sent you a PM with some other thoughts.

I'd be interested in that!

IM IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That sounds like a great plan. I was just reading a book on how the Jeep concept got started and Holabird was mentioned. Maybe after the cleanup we could climb the same hill

Do you have a timeframe in mind? There are generally some boys in my cub scout pack, and possibly the associated boy scout troop, who could use service hours. If we are talking picking up trash, that would work. Can't commit anyone, but could make the announcement.

No time frame yet. Still have to find out for sure who owns it, then find out if they’ll even consider letting us – you know how insurance companies are, they may not even want us there for liability reasons. Waivers may not even be sufficient cause I guess agreements aren’t binding any more. To bad we don’t know any paralegals

Anyway, I was thinking more extensive cleanup, like cutting/clearing trees and such, but I’m sure that trash pickup in the area would be appreciated too! It would be neat having cub/boy scout involvement, cause as I mentioned, I’d like this to be a big PR thing, not necessarily for the club name (though it should be a great testimony), but for the history of the site.

i'll have to get back to you on whether i am free, i am running an extremely tight schedule at the moment between college, fire department classes, maintaining a relationship, and running calls through my two fire companies... i'll do my best to make it though

Let me ask around to see if I can come up with a contact.